We were shanghaied

NA PA was designed and built for Patrick Manning by Shanghai Construction Group from China, without other tenders being sought. There was never any local expertise reviewing the designs or the workmanship throughout the project. It was one of Patrick Manning’s vanity projects along with one in South, a palatial Prime Minister’s Diplomatic Centre and other projects like the Brian Lara Stadium, the Waterfront and the Downtown Government Campus.

NA PA was the cause of the bitter fight between Manning and Rowley around 2008. Manning’s super-technician, foreigner Calder Hart, who as head of Udecott spurred our expensive and scandal- riddled construction boom, installed a four-storey hotel into NA PA without telling Rowley, who was his line Minister. This caused Rowley to behave “like a raging bull” (I am quoting Hansard here).

But let us return to NA PA.

We all knew of the “user” complaints in the design, described by Rubadiri Victor of the T&T Artists Federation when the completed facility was presented. It was discovered that there had been no consultation whatever with any local interest user groups and the faults were legion. Those were serious issues of a lack of consideration and inconvenience to users and patrons. Much worse was to be revealed.

About two years ago NA PA was closed for unidentified reasons of public safety. No one could say, or would say, what was the problem or the problems. I wrote in this column that I suspected the issue was structural, others opined that asbestos had been used in the construction.

I called repeatedly for information to be provided. After all, here was our Flagship Cultural Project, which had cost us over a billion dollars (it was meant to cost $380 million!) closed for months on end with no word as to why.

A secret structural assessment was commissioned by the PP government in October 2014. The report was submitted to government in March 2015, about five months before the general elections. The report states that its contents are secret.

Citizens must now ask why, almost eighteen months after it was submitted, the report’s revelations remain officially secret? But this is Trinidad, and copies leaked out so the information is now available.

Apparently we allowed Shanghai Construction Group to design a public facility—a large theatre-- well below the seismic code (earthquakes) standard required for TT . And well below the windload requirement as well. And we were keeping this secret. But it is not only the designs; the materials and workmanship throughout the facility are grossly substandard and poorly completed.

All of the welded connections which were tested failed, all of the supports holding the suspended ceiling above the theatre were condemned, the trusses (lattice beams) above the stage are condemned, and the list goes on and on. Everything could have fallen on the patrons and the performers.

In the foundations and in the four-storey walls, steel reinforcement is exposed (it should be embedded in concrete) or absent, the walls facing collapse in an earthquake.

I could go on and on, the list is unbelievable.

Never has such a dangerous structure been erected in our country, and we paid over one billion dollars for this? But why did two governments try so hard to keep all of these dangerous defects secret? The answers to this question will eventually come forth, for while we know that the PNM would have been embarrassed that their beloved Patrick Manning and Calder Hart (both granted humble apologies by the Minister who oversaw the completion of this disgrace) had foisted this dangerous project upon us, why did the UNC not use this damning information against the PNM in the 2015 election? What deals were struck between Shanghai and the UNC since 2010 in order to hide the potential collapse of NA PA? And it was only when the collapse was obvious and imminent that NA PA was quietly closed.

And what of the Diplomatic Centre, designed and built by Shanghai simultaneously with NA PA? Do you believe that building is structurally sound and properly completed? Are you that na?ve? Following disclosures about the structural assessment report in two newspapers, the present government has suddenly announced that NA PA is safe again! Over 5,000 welds have been corrected, they say! A n d Shanghai cont i n u e s to design and b u i l d projects for us...

More to come.