Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Work on the North Stand at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, the home for Car­ni­val 2023, has been halt­ed af­ter the star­tling dis­cov­ery that steel beam com­po­nents for the con­struc­tion of the stand have gone miss­ing.

Work­ers had to down tools and leave the site yes­ter­day, as work could not con­tin­ue due to the miss­ing steel.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands from sources that the steel com­po­nents may have gone miss­ing while the com­po­nents were stored out­side the Car­ni­val sea­son.

This comes just two weeks be­fore the biggest show card­ed for the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, the Na­tion­al Panora­ma Semi­fi­nals, is sched­uled to take place.

Pan Trin­ba­go is hop­ing to at­tract a bumper crowd for the event in cel­e­bra­tion of its 60th an­niver­sary.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to one of the work­ers at the site yes­ter­day. The work­er, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said work was halt­ed due to the miss­ing steel, since it means they can­not con­tin­ue mount­ing up oth­er crit­i­cal sec­tions of the stand due to the miss­ing parts. He added that the au­thor­i­ties had been try­ing to keep the is­sue qui­et but al­so not­ed the work­ers were fac­ing oth­er is­sues at the site.

“We are build­ing this stand, how­ev­er, we are fac­ing risky and un­favourable con­di­tions and the con­trac­tors as well are not treat­ing us fair­ly. We are faced with many chal­lenges but we are here de­spite it all be­cause we know our role is im­por­tant to the coun­try for the sea­son, but we are speak­ing out so that the coun­try can see the chal­lenges that we are cur­rent­ly fac­ing at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah,” the work­er claimed.

While Guardian Me­dia was vis­it­ing the North Stand site, there were no work­ers on-site and on­ly a few of­fi­cials.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man Win­ston “Gyspy” Pe­ters con­firmed that the steel beams were, in fact, miss­ing.

“I could not tell you the amount of steel that is miss­ing or from where on the North Stand it came. At this mo­ment, I am await­ing a re­port as to all that oc­curred in this mat­ter so I can­not say more at this time on the mat­ter,” Pe­ters said.

He added, “The miss­ing steel might de­lay the con­struc­tion of North Stand some­what, be­cause it is some­thing that we have to get done, but I am sure with the re­silience that we have in this coun­try and we will get it done.”

The NCC chair­man not­ed that this is­sue was not unique to this year, as steel for the North Stand has been miss­ing in the past with oth­er ver­sions of the North Stand de­sign.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Sheron Sam­path Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed was award­ed the con­tract to con­struct the North Stand and the com­pa­ny is cur­rent­ly sourc­ing re­place­ment steel com­po­nents to re­place the miss­ing com­po­nents for the com­ple­tion of the North Stand.

The North Stand has not been in use since 2019, when the NCC opt­ed not to con­struct it for fes­tiv­i­ties then cit­ing fi­nan­cial costs.

Back then, Pe­ters said the stand serves no use­ful pur­pose and is not an eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able op­tion for Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties be­cause it “is ba­si­cal­ly used for just one event, and that is the Panora­ma—and af­ter that, noth­ing hap­pens. That stand costs too much to put up and take down.”

The North Stand is usu­al­ly con­struct­ed for the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od and then dis­as­sem­bled af­ter it is con­clud­ed.