Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Sen­a­tor Wade Mark is call­ing for an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry in­to the struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of the north cham­ber in the Red House.

Speak­ing dur­ing a UNC press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Mark said the Sen­ate has a sit­ting to­mor­row and “we too are very con­cerned as Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and Sen­a­tors whether any kind of as­sess­ment and eval­u­a­tion on the struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of the roof that is above our heads.”

As Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness in the Sen­ate, Mark ap­pealed to the sec­re­tari­at of Par­lia­ment to com­mu­ni­cate with the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) to en­sure that a prop­er struc­tur­al as­sess­ment is done on the roof and oth­er parts of the his­tor­i­cal build­ing be­fore work is un­der­tak­en.

“Be­cause just as how a part of the ceil­ing could have fall­en down in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives we have to thank God that no Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and there was no sit­ting on that day be­cause some­body could have died as a re­sult of this crim­i­nal neg­li­gence.

“This is shod­dy work…at al­most what…half a bil­lion dol­lars.”

He said there should be a “prop­er in­de­pen­dent in­quiry in­to this whole fi­as­co.”

Dur­ing Fri­day’s sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, an ar­gu­ment erupt­ed over the length of time it would take to re­pair dam­age to the Par­lia­ment’s north Cham­ber.

Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal told Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is that it was un­ac­cept­able that two years af­ter the State had spent $441 mil­lion to re­fur­bish the Red House, re­pairs to the roof were now re­quired and for Mem­bers to move from one venue to the oth­er to fa­cil­i­tate last Fri­day’s sit­tings.

Ude­cott in a re­cent press re­lease stat­ed it was no­ti­fied of a leak on No­vem­ber 5 and work had be­gun.

It said ma­te­r­i­al had dis­lodged from the south­east sec­tion of the north cham­ber ceil­ing at the Red House.

In 2020, four days af­ter the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the Red House, a leak was found in the ro­tun­da roof af­ter rain fell.

Ude­cott doc­u­ments de­tail­ing ex­pen­di­ture for the re­fur­bish­ment showed that the roof and oth­er re­lat­ed car­pen­try work cost $20.1 mil­lion.

Mark said it was a shame that $441 mil­lion of tax­pay­ers’ was ex­pend­ed by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment to re­store the Red House months ago and these prob­lems have been crop­ping up.

“You have struc­tur­al de­fects and you have the cav­ing in of parts of the roof in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. I think it de­mands a prop­er as­sess­ment and eval­u­a­tion of the struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of that whole cham­ber both the Sen­ate as well as the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, so that the safe­ty of mem­bers and work­ers of Par­lia­ment can be pro­tect­ed,” he said.

—SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI