Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Af­ter months of de­lays and cost over­runs, Gov­ern­ment is fi­nal­ly plan­ning to open the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts south cam­pus, as an In­de­pen­dence/Re­pub­lic Day gift to the peo­ple of south Trinidad. This was re­vealed yes­ter­day by Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti-cul­tur­al­ism, Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas as a team from the Na­pari­ma Bowl, Queen's Hall, Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, NA­PA North Cam­pus, San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion and the cul­tur­al di­vi­sion of the min­istry ac­com­pa­nied him on a tour of the fa­cil­i­ty, lo­cat­ed at the cor­ner of Todd Street and Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way.

Dou­glas said the Shang­hai Con­struc­tion com­pa­ny hand­ed the fa­cil­i­ty over to UDE­COTT a few weeks ago. The fa­cil­i­ty has a main the­atre which holds 808 pa­trons and a small­er the­atre for 190 peo­ple. There is al­so a spa­cious dance room and sev­er­al class­rooms. How­ev­er, Dou­glas said a num­ber of things still need­ed to be fixed.

"Some is­sues have al­ready been re­solved but a few ar­eas re­main out­stand­ing such as the floor sur­faces and the mov­ing stage," Dou­glas said. He added that the min­istry has en­gaged the ser­vices of con­trac­tors and en­gi­neer­ing com­pa­nies to look over the me­chan­i­cal elec­tri­cal, phys­i­cal and per­form­ing spaces of the fa­cil­i­ty. How­ev­er, he said be­fore the fa­cil­i­ty is opened, a com­mit­tee com­pris­ing of the var­i­ous cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions has to sub­mit a re­port to the min­istry.

"On Fri­day we put to­geth­er a team with a num­ber of stake­hold­ers from UTT, NA­PA, Queen's Hall, Na­pari­ma Bowl and cul­tur­al di­vi­sion, San Fer­nan­do and we are set­ting out a time-ta­ble for the of­fi­cial and for­mal open­ing of this fa­cil­i­ty. We have an­oth­er team ap­point­ed to re­view staffing of fa­cil­i­ty for the of­fi­cial open­ing. The team will al­so look in­to the book­ing and pric­ing of the fa­cil­i­ty in light of the many re­quests we re­ceive at the min­istry," Dou­glas said.

Dou­glas said the cam­pus was in high de­mand and he hoped that the team sub­mits a re­port with­in two weeks so that the for­mal open­ing of the cam­pus could be or­gan­ised. Asked to spec­i­fy when the open­ing will be held, Dou­glas said it will be be­tween In­de­pen­dence and Re­pub­lic Day.

"The min­istry is aim­ing to have NA­PA opened soon to fa­cil­i­tate many as­pects of In­de­pen­dence and our cel­e­bra­tions be­tween Au­gust and Sep­tem­ber," he said. Asked about the ad­di­tion­al cost over­runs, Dou­glas said he has not dealt with that. He said a num­ber of tri­al events will be held at the fa­cil­i­ty be­fore the for­mal open­ing.

Mean­while, San Fer­nan­do May­or Dr Navi Mu­radali said he want­ed the cam­pus opened in time for the Ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tions. "The city will love to have NA­PA opened as an In­de­pen­dence gift to the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do and the na­tion," Mu­radali said. Con­struc­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty be­gan in 2008 and was ap­proved by then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $252 mil­lion. It was ex­pect­ed to be opened last Oc­to­ber. At the time, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, un­der whose port­fo­lio UDE­COTT fell, said it would have been com­plet­ed at a cost of $350 mil­lion.