Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised the first Bap­tist School in the coun­try-the St Bar­bara's Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School-would be con­struct­ed with­in 12 months. She an­nounced that dur­ing yes­ter­day's Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Day cel­e­bra­tions in Mal­oney. She said the "wait and dis­ap­point­ment are over."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion would work close­ly to en­sure that the fa­cil­i­ty was con­struct­ed. She said ten­ders for the project must go out for eval­u­a­tion with­in four months and con­struc­tion must be­gin short­ly af­ter that pe­ri­od.

The sod-turn­ing ex­er­cise took place sev­er­al years ago un­der then prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day.

The is ex­pect­ed to ac­com­mo­date 450 pupils.

Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Gray-Burke lat­er ex­pressed her grat­i­tude for the project. She said it was a ful­fil­ment of a promise made sev­er­al years ago. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when she re­turned to Mal­oney for next year's cel­e­bra­tions "Trinidad and To­ba­go will not on­ly be the first coun­try in the world to cel­e­brate a Bap­tist hol­i­day, but the first to have a Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist pri­ma­ry school. She praised the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty for its strug­gle over the past sev­er­al years. She said the Bap­tists had con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Bap­tist hol­i­day was one of the more sig­nif­i­cant ones cel­e­brat­ed in T&T.

Hun­dreds of Bap­tists as­sem­bled at the venue to cel­e­brate the hol­i­day which was de­clared in their ho­n­our some 15 years ago. Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, Min­is­ters in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Col­in Par­tap and Rodger Samuel and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Clifton De Coteau at­tend­ed the cel­e­bra­tions in Mal­oney.