Power outage at Parliament building

Newsday has been informed the power outage affected the entire building and lasted for approximately 30 minutes. While a back-up generator was supposed to have kicked in, that did not occur, Parliament officials said.

“The generators did not kick in as they were supposed to,” said Parliament spokesperson Jason Elcock. “Some of the lights were on but other things were not working. The Parliament channel has its own battery power so that was not affected. Some of the computers would have shut down incorrectly.” The spokesman said, however, that no damage was incurred. There has been no explanation why the backup generators did not kick in. The Parliament did not have a sitting on Thursday at the time of the outage.

A spokesperson for the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (TTEC) said the outage was caused by activity in Sea Lots, located a stone’s throw away from Tower D.

“We had a brief interruption coming out of our Beetham sub-station yesterday,” said the spokesperson. “Apparently, some private person was doing some work with heavy equipment at Sea Lots causing the system to trip. If there was an outage it would have been very brief.”

Several ministries are also housed at Tower D, including the Ministry of Science and Technology; the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Gender, Youth Affairs and Child Development. The offices of the Integrity Commission as also located at the building.

Minister of Science and Technology Dr Rupert Griffith said he was in Cabinet at the time of the outage. However, he was briefed by his secretary upon his return to office and told that the outage occurred.

Minister of Transport Stephen Cadiz said he was unaware of the details as to whether the back-up generators kicked in as designed. However, he noted there was an erratic supply.

“There was an outage,” he said. “The power came back on then it went again.”

Speaker Wade Mark could not be reached for comment.