Shal­iza Has­sanali

?The mys­tery build­ing, now un­der fever­ish con­struc­tion on the com­pound of the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence in St Ann's, was re­vealed last night to be a con­cert hall which would ac­com­mo­date 1,000 peo­ple on com­ple­tion.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said the new con­cert hall, which is near­ing com­ple­tion, was be­ing con­struct­ed be­cause "the ball­room of the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on­ly ac­com­mo­dates 250 guests" while the new struc­ture will fa­cil­i­tate four times as many guests "when­ev­er oc­ca­sions arise for ap­pro­pri­ate events. "It will be re­mem­bered that hith­er­to it was not pos­si­ble to gath­er such num­bers suc­cess­ful­ly." Over 50 heads of gov­ern­ment and hun­dreds of for­eign of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed in the coun­try lat­er this month to at­tend the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing. The pub­lic was giv­en its first glimpse of the build­ing in an ex­clu­sive re­port with pho­tographs in the last Sun­day Guardian. The ar­ti­cle spoke of Chi­nese labour­ers work­ing fever­ish­ly on the three-storey build­ing near the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre. The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said the build­ing was the last of the an­nex­es on the com­pound of the of­fi­cial res­i­dence and Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre. Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, the build­ing "was part of the orig­i­nal con­cept" for the com­pound and it would be equipped with a stage, dress­ing room for artistes, toi­let fa­cil­i­ties for per­form­ers and guests, a hold­ing area and stor­age space for equip­ment, such as tents and ta­bles.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, through its com­mu­ni­ca­tions and me­dia re­la­tions man­ag­er, Paige de Leon, said the build­ing would im­prove the func­tion­al­i­ty of the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre and "bring it to op­ti­mum op­er­at­ing ca­pac­i­ty as it was orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed." The re­lease stat­ed that the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre had in­creased it ca­pac­i­ty with the in­clu­sion of a build­ing now un­der con­struc­tion and near­ing com­ple­tion. "This is the fi­nal fa­cil­i­ty to com­plete the an­nex­ures to the build­ing of the of­fi­cial res­i­dence and Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre. These now in­clude me­dia and dri­vers' lounges and garage fa­cil­i­ties," de Leon stat­ed. Al­so near­ing com­ple­tion, and be­ing con­struct­ed by the same Chi­nese com­pa­ny, Shang­hai Con­struc­tion, is the Per­form­ing Arts Acad­e­my, which will ac­com­mo­date thou­sands of con­cert-go­ers. The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is now ad­ver­tis­ing for mem­bers for a na­tion­al sym­pho­ny or­ches­tra. About two years ago, a big band called Di­vine Echoes was es­tab­lished by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.