Heat in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day as Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion clashed over rev­e­la­tions that the new To­ba­go air­port ter­mi­nal could end up cost­ing $1.1 bil­lion.

This was af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­firmed that in ad­di­tion to the $870 mil­lion con­struc­tion cost of the ter­mi­nal, there is al­so a process for land ac­qui­si­tion cost­ing $300 mil­lion. He gave the in­for­ma­tion while re­ply­ing to a ques­tion from Cou­va North MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al about the in­crease of the es­ti­mat­ed cost for the ter­mi­nal from $500 mil­lion to $870 mil­lion.

Row­ley said $500 mil­lion was an ap­prox­i­mate fig­ure giv­en three years ago and didn’t in­clude prop­er de­signs. He said when prop­er­ly con­cep­tu­alised, the en­gi­neer’s es­ti­mate was $881 mil­lion. When the is­sue went to ten­der, the fig­ure changed to $870 mil­lion on the spe­cif­ic de­signs.

Row­ley was crit­i­cal of Ram­di­al’s sug­ges­tion that the in­crease from $500 mil­lion to $870 mil­lion was ex­or­bi­tant. He point­ed to projects un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing the waste­water plant and Point Fortin high­way.

“This is for Trinidad and To­ba­go. It brings To­ba­go’s econ­o­my as a con­trib­u­tor to the na­tion­al econ­o­my as we grow the tourism prod­uct. We don’t find it ex­or­bi­tant at all,” he added

When UNC MP Vidya Guayadeen-Gopeesingh asked if the $870 mil­lion in­clud­ed land ac­qui­si­tion costs, Row­ley said that was con­struc­tion costs and there is a land ac­qui­si­tion es­ti­mate of $300 mil­lion.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal again asked about the land ac­qui­si­tion cost. Row­ley, not­ing that he had just ex­plained that, re­peat­ed the $300 mil­lion and $870 mil­lion costs.

“What’s so dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand?” he asked.

Mooni­lal then asked: “Does Gov­ern­ment be­lieve $1.1 bil­lion-plus is val­ue for mon­ey for a ter­mi­nal? For one ter­mi­nal?”

Row­ley replied with an­noy­ance: “I just said yes! It’s a ma­jor in­vest­ment of na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture, in this case for To­ba­go and ex­pan­sion of their tourism fa­cil­i­ty! We an­tic­i­pate there will be sig­nif­i­cant growth in To­ba­go and one fa­cil­i­ty to bring about that growth is a prop­er mod­ern ter­mi­nal to han­dle larg­er air­craft in To­ba­go!

“Any­one with an in­ter­est in To­ba­go will know the cur­rent fa­cil­i­ty is an en­cum­brance and a hin­drance to tourism in To­ba­go, so I don’t un­der­stand what my col­leagues on the oth­er side have a prob­lem with con­struct­ing a ter­mi­nal in To­ba­go for $870 mil­lion but they had no prob­lem giv­ing OAS $921 mil­lion.”

UNC MPs be­gan shout­ing back with Rod­ney Charles half ris­ing from his seat, point­ing fin­gers.

Row­ley roared back: “You could say what you want! The peo­ple of To­ba­go will get their fa­cil­i­ty. This gov­ern­ment will en­sure (it).”

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George had to call for or­der.

Row­ley said he had no spe­cif­ic fig­ure on how many To­bag­o­ni­ans will be em­ployed in the con­struc­tion phase of the project, but said he knew the op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to get em­ploy­ment would arise. He said the fact the project was be­ing done by a Chi­nese com­pa­ny didn’t mean To­bag­o­ni­ans wouldn’t par­tic­i­pate.