An es­ti­mat­ed $20 mil­lion was spent to re­pair the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) which was or­dered to be closed in April 2014 by Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty.

The fa­cil­i­ty, which was con­struct­ed in 2008 by Shang­hai Con­struc­tion Group, was one of the lega­cy build­ings from the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion and cost tax­pay­ers over $500 mil­lion.

Dur­ing a tour of the build­ing yes­ter­day, Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gadb­sy-Dol­ly said she was sat­is­fied the build­ing was now safe for the re­sump­tion of class­es for mu­sic stu­dents and oth­er users.

Cul­tur­al events, she said, should re­sume lat­er in the year af­ter a re-open­ing cer­e­mo­ny yet to be fixed.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter the Gov­ern­ment will pay for the main­te­nance costs but the orig­i­nal con­trac­tor, Shang­hai Cor­po­ra­tion of Chi­na, will have to pay the costs of the struc­tur­al re­pairs.

She said Ude­cott had re­quest­ed that ad­di­tion­al light­ing and sound equip­ment should be pur­chased but the Cab­i­net was yet to ap­prove that.

Equip­ment from NA­PA have been trans­ferred for use at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, and the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, San Fer­nan­do.

Chair­man of Ude­cott, Noel Gar­cia, said ren­o­va­tion of the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Sta­di­um, Tarou­ba, was near­ing com­ple­tion.

He dis­missed crit­i­cism the fa­cil­i­ty should be aban­doned, say­ing it "should be used for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of T&T."

He said the sta­di­um would "pro­vide a wel­come re­lief to crick­et fans and play­ers in the South and Cen­tral re­gions."

Gar­cia said the first game should take place in De­cem­ber at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um. He said the es­ti­mat­ed cost of re­pairs to the fa­cil­i­ty would be be­tween $85 and $90 mil­lion. He said an es­ti­mat­ed $800 mil­lion was al­ready spent to con­struct it and should not be aban­doned.

Con­struc­tion be­gan in May 2005 with an ini­tial cost es­ti­mate of $275 mil­lion. The sta­di­um, which has a ca­pac­i­ty of 17,000, was to be com­plet­ed be­fore the host­ing of the Crick­et World Cup in 2007 but was hit with mul­ti­ple de­lays and cost over­runs.

On an­oth­er project, the Chil­dren Hos­pi­tal, Cou­va, which was built by Chi­nese con­trac­tors, Gar­cia said work there was com­plete and the fa­cil­i­ty was now un­der the con­trol of Ude­cott.

Op­po­si­tion MPs have been call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to open the fa­cil­i­ty which was con­struct­ed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

Gar­cia said yes­ter­day: "We have tak­en over the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and it is re­al­ly now up to the Cab­i­net to di­rect Ude­cott as to the next step."–with re­port­ing by Richard Lord