Af­ter near­ly 20 months of labour and $89 Mil­lion spent, the new­ly-ren­o­vat­ed Pres­i­dent's House host­ed its first func­tion on Tues­day.

And her Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent Paula Mae-Weekes, said she is ful­ly aware of the hefty price tag in the cli­mate of sev­er­al na­tion­al is­sues. How­ev­er, she said some­times na­tion­al pride must be a pri­or­i­ty.

In the pres­ence of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, act­ing Chief Jus­tice Al­lan Men­don­ca and sev­er­al oth­er dig­ni­taries, the Pres­i­dent spoke of the need for this new struc­ture. She re­count­ed a time when the Pres­i­dent of Ghana had to pay her a vis­it but she was em­bar­rassed by the con­di­tion of what is com­mon­ly re­ferred to as 'the Cot­tage', which served as a tem­po­rary house for the Pres­i­dent.

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said the build­ing had over­whelmed him with its splen­dour. He de­scribed the build­ing as the 'crown jew­el of Trinidad and To­ba­go'.