Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les wants the Gov­ern­ment to bring the ev­i­dence to show that White­hall is un­fit for use.

Fol­low­ing her ap­point­ment at Pres­i­dent’s House yes­ter­day, Beck­les said she was “fas­ci­nat­ed” to know what made the his­toric build­ing so un­fit that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar opt­ed to work from home.

On Mon­day, fol­low­ing a meet­ing at White­hall and a tour of the premis­es, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Bar­ry Padarath, con­tend­ed that the build­ing was dys­func­tion­al due to in­fra­struc­tur­al con­cerns.

How­ev­er, Beck­les said less than a month ago, the Stu­art Young-led Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment had been op­er­at­ing out of the fa­cil­i­ty with­out any prob­lems.

“It is for them to bring to the pub­lic and give us some more in­for­ma­tion about that. When you talk about un­fit and the fact that the Prime Min­is­ter can­not op­er­ate out of there, I’m sure the pub­lic is wait­ing for more in­for­ma­tion. I am. We op­er­at­ed out of there and were very com­fort­able,” she said.

Beck­les said she was un­aware of any is­sues that could im­pact the build­ing’s readi­ness for use.

“We had our cab­i­net meet­ing there just two weeks ago. We have had cab­i­net there for quite a long time, so I am fas­ci­nat­ed to hear what makes White­hall un­fit,” the Op­po­si­tion Leader asked.

Yes­ter­day, sev­er­al videos were cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia show­ing what was claimed to be de­lap­i­dat­ed parts of White­hall, while oth­er videos showed a clean and well-main­tained build­ing. The videos could not be ver­i­fied.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, for­mer pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion min­is­ter Allyson West weighed in on the is­sue. In a state­ment, West in­sist­ed that White­hall is fit for use de­spite the new UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion rais­ing con­cerns about its con­di­tion.

“The build­ing re­mains in ac­tive use and con­tin­ues to serve its pur­pose as the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, at least that was the po­si­tion up to April 28, 2025,” West said.

The for­mer min­is­ter al­so clar­i­fied that on­ly the base­ment area, oc­cu­pied by the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tari­at, had been af­fect­ed by leaks and drainage prob­lems fol­low­ing the 2024 rainy sea­son and was re­lo­cat­ed. She stat­ed that re­pair works amount­ing to $4.5 mil­lion were rec­om­mend­ed and in­clud­ed base­ment wa­ter­proof­ing and plumb­ing, emer­gency egress and ac­cess points for de­liv­er­ies, drainage at the pedes­tri­an ac­cess used by Cab­i­net Of­fice staff, rou­tine clean­ing and win­dow main­te­nance in the af­fect­ed area. She said this did not im­pact the rest of White­hall.

Ude­cott on Mon­day said re­me­di­al works were sched­uled to com­mence soon.

West ques­tioned if the Gov­ern­ment’s chal­lenges with White­hall were more about space for the new Cab­i­net.

“It may well be that the re­al is­sue is the in­abil­i­ty of the Cab­i­net meet­ing room, which com­fort­ably ac­com­mo­dat­ed the Row­ley and Young cab­i­nets, to ac­com­mo­date the cur­rent Cab­i­net,” she not­ed.

On the Gov­ern­ment’s first work­ing day in of­fice on Mon­day, Padarath point­ed to sev­er­al is­sues at White­hall, in­clud­ing mould and flood­ing. He charged that staff al­so ex­pressed con­cerns with the in­fra­struc­ture.

“This fa­cil­i­ty is not a func­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty. There are chal­lenges here. There are health is­sues with re­spect to mould,” the min­is­ter said then.

In 2019, White­hall was re­opened un­der the then Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led PNM 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.