PM: TT honouring its World Cup ‘brown packet’

Prime Minister Patrick Manning yesterday defended Government’s decision to spend $850 million on a sports complex in Tarouba saying that it was not “profligate spending” but that Government was merely honouring its  “brown packet” obligation (to host some games in World Cup Cricket 2007). Speaking in the House of Representa-tives, Manning reminded the country that when he — “ recognising that the obligations were great” — took the position that Trinidad and Tobago was not going to make a bid for World Cup 2007, but would take what others left behind, he was soundly condemned. He said with the brown packet responsibility came an obligation to construct the Brian Lara Stadium. “And if today the Government acts in satisfaction of that obligation as a result of contractual obligations in the Caribbean in result of World Cup Cricket, you cannot blame the Government of Trinidad and Tobago,” he said.

As he contributed to the debate on the Variation of Appropriation Bill, Manning also defended Government’s decision to move the Parliament out of the Red House, saying that the current chamber could not accommodate an expanded House of Representatives without “disturbing” the architecture of the historic building. “And that has nothing to do with the use to which the Red House would be put,” he said, in apparent  anticipation of crosstalk that the movement of the Parliament was motivated by his desire to have the Office of the Prime Minister relocated to the Red House. The construction of a new Parliament building had to do with the attempt by Government to “modernise the State,” the Prime Minister said.

Manning also gave Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday, recently out of prison, some good humoured picong, saying that all those in Death Row and in prison were now “quaking in their boots” as a result of the reading of a death warrant. “I am sure that  is why my honourable friend opposite beat such a hasty retreat, with the connivance of the honourable Member for Caroni East and a friend who I shall not name. He beat such a hasty retreat in finding much more comfortable surrounding. He has learnt one lesson — Jail ain’t nice. And I hope it is a lesson that all of you (in the UNC) learn,” the Prime Minister said, amid chuckles from the Government bench. But Manning spent most of his contribution detailing and defending the many mega-projects on which Government had embarked  using Udecott as the executing agency.

He said on his way to the Ministry of Finance he sees the construction of the Government campus which includes a ten storey customs and excise building and a 22 storey building to house the Board of Inland Revenue. On the opposite side is the construction activity for a 1,800-vehicle carpark, another 22 storey building to house the Attorney General’s office as well as a ten storey building for the Ministry of Education. He said Government planned to place a big screen TV in the courtyard of the Government campus to encourage people to come there after work and put life into the city. “You will remember when we were constructing the Brian Lara Promenade, people made the same comments — ‘why Manning don’t take that money to provide employment for poor people in Laventille.

As if the Promenade was being constructed by machines,” he said. Manning said the $850M complex will be  a centre of excellence (in sport) of which all Trinidadian and Tobagonians would be proud. He said the building of the complex came after Brian Lara and George Bovell achieved major feats. Then Government decided to build a cricket stadium and academy and an aquatic centre. “It was not pie in the sky...  It was a systematic determination of the requirements of Trinidad and Tobago to achieve excellence in sport and achieve developed country status,” he said. Manning said as Government engaged in all this construction, a significant number of jobs were created. He said on Wrightson Road, two of the tallest buildings ever to be constructed in Trinidad and Tobago, would be built — two 26 storey buildings, a 24-floor hotel and a convention centre to house 1,800 participants and a car park to hold 1,200 vehicles.

Manning said he couldn’t understand how UNC MP Gerald Yetming could say that Government was doing nothing in the face of all this. He (Yetming) was obviously a stranger to the truth, the PM concluded. On the issue of housing, he said when the PNM in Opposition talked about 10,000 houses a year, everybody laughed. He said in 2005, the housing statistics in the public sector were 6,500 and in the private sector 1500, making a total of 8,000. “We are getting close (to the 10,000 target),” he said. He said by 2007, Government  would have built over 20,000 houses. He praised the Udecott model, saying that it did not face the constraints of the public service. As a state enterprise, Udecott could do its own tendering, hiring, firing, disciplining and promoting.