Chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert will lead a con­tin­gent of of­fi­cials on a vis­it to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) on Wednes­day as the par­ty pre­pares for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions lat­er this year and gen­er­al elec­tion next year.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters fol­low­ing the PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil Meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House, Im­bert con­firmed the group would in­clude Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell; Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is; Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan; Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings; IT Spe­cial­ist Jessie Williams; and Stan­ford Cal­len­der rep­re­sent­ing To­ba­go.

He said the meet­ing was pre-arranged to dis­cuss mat­ters re­lat­ing to the two up­com­ing elec­tions, as well as as­sess the EBC’s readi­ness and pre­pared­ness.

Last held in T&T on No­vem­ber 28, 2016, the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due in ear­ly De­cem­ber.

Elec­tions were held to se­lect the mem­ber­ship of 14 lo­cal mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties, with rep­re­sen­ta­tives elect­ed from 137 elec­toral dis­tricts across the coun­try.

The PNM is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing nom­i­na­tions from all par­ty groups for lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­dates and has set a dead­line date of June 30 for those nom­i­na­tions to close, at which time screen­ing will then be­gin.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Im­bert an­nounced that calls have gone out for nom­i­na­tions for seats nor­mal­ly con­test­ed dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion which is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due by Sep­tem­ber 2020.

He said, "These are seats where the PNM are not cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed but we cer­tain­ly in­tend to. The po­lit­i­cal leader has called for nom­i­na­tions in the con­stituen­cies of St Au­gus­tine; Pointe-a-Pierre; Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la; Barataria/San Juan; and Ch­agua­nas East."

Im­bert said these con­stituen­cy nom­i­na­tions would com­mence im­me­di­ate­ly with a cut-off date of Ju­ly 12, fol­lowed by screen­ing short­ly there­after.

Mean­while, prepa­ra­tions are con­tin­u­ing for the PNM’s an­nu­al fam­i­ly day which will be held on Ju­ly 14 at Phase 6, La Hor­quet­ta.

Par­ty mem­bers urged: Buy a $10 brick

Par­ty faith­fuls are be­ing urged to con­tribute to the new Bal­isi­er House which is cur­rent­ly un­der con­struc­tion by buy­ing a brick for $10.

Re­con­firm­ing the di­rec­tive had come from par­ty leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, PNM’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings said con­struc­tion of the new head­quar­ters had be­gun, fund­ed out of do­na­tions and would be con­tin­ued through do­na­tions by sup­port­ers.

Speak­ing dur­ing the press con­fer­ence which fol­lowed yes­ter­day’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing, par­ty chair­man Colm Im­bert said the fund-rais­ing ini­tia­tive had pre­ced­ed last year’s grand car raf­fle which had man­aged to raise over $8 mil­lion.

It is es­ti­mat­ed that the five-storey build­ing which in­cludes un­der­ground park­ing is cost­ing mil­lions to con­struct.

A quick check of on­go­ing works re­vealed that the base­ment had al­ready been cast.

The new struc­ture is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide of­fice space for par­ty op­er­a­tions and will al­so fea­ture rental spaces which will en­able the PNM to gen­er­ate a steady cash flow stream for the par­ty's longevi­ty.

The cur­rent Bal­isi­er House is to be re­fur­bished and used as a mu­se­um and archive li­brary.