Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was forced to work from home on what would have been her first of­fi­cial day in of­fice yes­ter­day, due to what Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says is the “dys­func­tion­al” and un­fit state of White­hall in Port-of-Spain.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side White­hall yes­ter­day, Padarath ex­pressed con­cern over the phys­i­cal con­di­tions of the build­ing.

“This fa­cil­i­ty is not a func­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty. There are chal­lenges here. The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary just shared with us that there are parts of the build­ing that can­not be used be­cause there is a lot of flood­ing, there are health is­sues with re­spect to mould,” Padarath said.

“This fa­cil­i­ty is not con­ducive re­al­ly based on what we were ad­vised by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary for op­er­a­tions. You’d be sur­prised to know that the cab­i­net sec­re­tari­at, which is at the ground floor, has been flood­ed out and they’ve been re­lo­cat­ed.”

When asked whether Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be op­er­at­ing out of the Mar­aval Road of­fice, which was in use by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley up to March, Padarath in­di­cat­ed that it will be dif­fi­cult to con­tin­ue op­er­a­tions.

“The cab­i­net sec­re­tari­at does not func­tion out of this fa­cil­i­ty, and we were sur­prised to come and find out that the Gov­ern­ment can­not func­tion out of this of­fice,” he said.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that she was ad­vised against go­ing to White­hall due to the “mould prob­lem” and as a re­sult worked from home.

Padarath took fur­ther aim at the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion for the state of the of­fice.

“We are quite sur­prised and shocked at the lev­el of dys­func­tion­al­i­ty that ex­ist­ed with the pri­or ad­min­is­tra­tion in terms of this fa­cil­i­ty re­al­ly be­ing an area which should have been the hub of op­er­a­tions for the gov­ern­ment.”

He said the is­sues there had tak­en a toll on staff mem­bers.

“The staff seems to be un­hap­py with the state of af­fairs at the fa­cil­i­ty they have had to func­tion out of. Those were some of the things the PS raised with us.”

Asked whether the PM would op­er­ate out of the fa­cil­i­ty, Padarath said, “We will now go back to the Prime Min­is­ter and in­di­cate what is avail­able to her.”

Over the years, White­hall has served as a cen­tral ad­min­is­tra­tive hub for gov­ern­ment. Most re­cent­ly, post-cab­i­net brief­in­gs had been re­turned to the of­fice by Row­ley.

Af­ter be­ing pur­chased by the gov­ern­ment in 1954, ini­tial restora­tion work on White­hall was com­plet­ed in 2000 and it was oc­cu­pied by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter un­til 2009. How­ev­er, it had to be va­cat­ed there­after be­cause it was deemed un­fit for oc­cu­pa­tion.

In 2019, White­hall was re­opened un­der the then-Row­ley-led Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion af­ter un­der­go­ing two years of re­pair works aimed at pre­serv­ing the build­ing’s ar­chi­tec­tur­al her­itage and re­turn­ing it to its orig­i­nal func­tion as the of­fi­cial of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to the tune of $32 mil­lion.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the state of the build­ing, UDe­COTT con­firmed it had been pre­vi­ous­ly tasked with un­der­tak­ing re­me­di­al works which were on­go­ing.

“Some of the works could not be ex­pe­dit­ed with­out the re­lo­ca­tion of some staff who were lo­cat­ed at the base­ment lev­el of White­hall. Up­on re­lo­ca­tion of those staffers in Feb­ru­ary 2025, a con­trac­tor was en­gaged on March 28, 2025, to car­ry out the re­me­di­al works which are to com­mence soon. These works are es­ti­mat­ed to be com­plet­ed in a max­i­mum of three months,” a state­ment from UDe­COTT said.

Mean­while, Padarath said among his first ac­tiv­i­ties as Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter was an en­gage­ment with the pub­lic ser­vice and oth­er min­istry of­fi­cials.

“We al­so did a lot of house­keep­ing this morn­ing with re­spect to oth­er min­is­ters and min­istries, so to­day was re­al­ly an ori­en­ta­tion. As you know, around this time there is usu­al­ly a mid-year re­view so we asked for cer­tain pieces of in­for­ma­tion to in­form some of the de­ci­sions we will take in the next cou­ple days ahead.”