Michelle Loubon

Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs says it will cost about $20 mil­lion to at­tend to the nig­gling is­sues like light­ing and floor­ing at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Princes Build­ing Grounds, Port-of-Spain. Re­grel­lo came for­ward yes­ter­day in his ca­pac­i­ty as both per­former and mem­ber of gov­ern­ment. Along with re­cent­ly ap­point­ed Sharon Christo­pher, chair of the man­age­ment com­mit­tee of the au­di­to­ri­um, Re­grel­lo ad­mit­ted to flaws that need to be ad­dressed.

Re­grel­lo said, "It would cost about $20 mil­lion... all the things that need fix­ing, to get the fa­cil­i­ty prop­er­ly func­tion­ing and go­ing." He said, "It is the first time I have toured the fa­cil­i­ty. It is fan­tas­tic. I am say­ing that as some­one who has per­formed in the Roy­al Al­bert Hall, (Lon­don). I am sold." Re­grel­lo added, "The Syd­ney Opera House was built by Aus­tri­ans. It took about two years to bring it to where it should be. "I ad­mit there are grey ar­eas that need to be worked out. I know for a fact we have to change the floor­ing. It is lam­i­nate." Re­grel­lo ap­pealed to the pop­u­la­tion to be "pa­tient and give us time to work it out."

He said, "Let us be proud that we have such a grand fa­cil­i­ty. It is the on­ly one of its kind in the Caribbean." On the oth­er hand, Rubadiri Vic­tor, in­ter­im Pres­i­dent of the Artists' Coali­tion of T&T had claimed there had not been ad­e­quate stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion. He did so at a news con­fer­ence at The Pro­fes­sion­als' Cen­tre, Mu­cu­rapo, on Thurs­day. He said the state-of-the-art ed­i­fice had con­cep­tu­al, tech­ni­cal and pro­gram­ming flaws. Re­gard­ing Vi­jay Ram­lal's (Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Chut­ney Coun­cil) claims that the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Mar­lene Mc Don­ald had not ap­proved of chut­ney be­ing staged there. Re­grel­lo said, "NA­PA is not the ide­al venue for tas­sa, chut­ney and parang."

He said, "What the Min­is­ter re­al­ly meant is NA­PA is not the space for that. It is in­fec­tious. Peo­ple re­spond to that kind of mu­sic with a re­al amount of en­er­gy, vi­vac­i­ty and joie-de-vivre. "The Min­is­ter had al­so de­nied Pan Trin­ba­go the re­quest to stage Champs In Con­cert there, too. "She nev­er meant it as any dis­re­spect. But mere­ly she want­ed to keep it up­scale... keep it to a cer­tain type of en­ter­tain­ment. We may even have to up­grade a Best Vil­lage show to bring it in here." On the is­sue of pro­mot­ers' claims they will not be able to stage shows there and re­alise a prof­it, Re­grel­lo said "Ma­jor pro­duc­tions can be sub­sidised by big com­pa­nies. Get the big com­pa­nies to buy in­to it. "When the En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre is com­plet­ed... you can have that kind of event there. Pro­mot­ers can stage their shows there."