RENU­KA SINGH

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce plans to­day, to move his of­fice back to White­hall.

Re­fur­bish­ment works at the state­ly White­hall was com­plet­ed at a cost of $32 mil­lion.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Don­na Cox yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that while she does not know the ex­act date, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is ex­pect­ed to be back at White­hall with­in the next few days.

“It will be ear­ly in the next month,” she said.

The all-white build­ing, lo­cat­ed around the Queens Park Sa­van­nah, is ex­pect­ed to be of­fi­cial­ly re­opened on Thurs­day by the Prime Min­is­ter and he is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce the ex­act date of the move.

Chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­COTT) Noel Gar­cia yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia that the project came in un­der bud­get and two weeks shy of the set dead­line for com­ple­tion.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Gar­cia said that the project be­gan on Sep­tem­ber 20 last year and took just un­der a year to com­plete.

“It was a re­fur­bish­ment, so we would have en­coun­tered de­te­ri­o­ra­tion that we did not ex­pect,” Gar­cia said.

He said the num­ber of trees both from the near­by Queens Park Sa­van­nah and from with­in the White Hall com­pound meant a lot of leaves clogged up the gut­ter­ing on the roof and led to se­vere leak­age.

“We had to re­build an en­tire wall be­cause of that,” he said.

He said while he was not sure when the Prime Min­is­ter was ex­pect­ed to move back in, the en­tire build­ing is fur­nished.

“He could move in any time he wish­es. It is ready,” he said.

“I think dur­ing the ad­dress to­mor­row (to­day) he will in­di­cate when he is mov­ing in but the fur­ni­ture is in, every­thing is in, so there is noth­ing to stop him. It is ready for him,” Gar­cia said.

In May dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas, Row­ley said that White­hall should be the home of the Cab­i­net once again by the end of June. How­ev­er, the re­fur­bish­ment was al­ways sched­uled for com­ple­tion by mid-Au­gust.

Ac­cord­ing to his­tor­i­cal records, in 1963, White­hall was the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter used by Dr Er­ic Williams, restora­tion works were done in 2000 and re­mained the of­fi­cial Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter un­til 2009 when it was closed for pro­longed restora­tion works.

Gar­cia said pro­tract­ed work on the Pres­i­dent’s House is al­so near­ing com­ple­tion and is ex­pect­ed to be hand­ed over be­fore the end of this year.

Row­ley is al­so ex­pect­ed to move Par­lia­ment back to the Red House be­fore the end of Sep­tem­ber.