Melis­sa Doughty

Al­though the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion is re­spon­si­ble for preser­va­tion, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and list­ing of her­itage sites, the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for their restora­tion has been al­lo­cat­ed to oth­er min­istries. The Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­ster and the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs were al­lo­cat­ed the funds for the restora­tion of sites such as White­hall, Pres­i­dent's House and Mille Fleurs.

The Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture was al­lo­cat­ed $2 mil­lion for the restora­tion of Mille Fleurs, $5 mil­lion for the Pres­i­dent's House and $1.5 mil­lion for Queen's Roy­al Col­lege un­der the De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme bud­get. The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter was al­lo­cat­ed $11 mil­lion for the con­tin­ued restora­tion of Stollmey­er's Cas­tle and $15 mil­lion for White­hall, while the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs was al­lo­cat­ed $2 mil­lion for Knowsley.

The De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme bud­get did not state how long each project would take. Di­ver­si­ty Min­is­ter Clifton De Coteau said un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly yes­ter­day in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian that the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for the restora­tion of the his­toric build­ings should be­long to his min­istry. He said he wrote to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ask­ing for the restora­tion to be­come his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

De Coteau said he would be meet­ing with Tourism Min­is­ter Steven Cadiz and the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture to dis­cuss the restora­tion. "For too long the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en has not been stand­ing in glo­ri­ous splen­dour," De Coteau said. He said the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion was not giv­en to his min­istry be­cause it lacks "ca­pac­i­ty," but he be­lieves since his min­istry bears the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for preser­va­tion, the restora­tion of the sites should al­so be­long to the min­istry.

He al­so said her­itage-site restora­tion was long over­due. The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en build­ings, along Queen's Park West, in­clude Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, which has been re­stored, and Stollmey­er's Cas­tle, the restora­tion of which is near­ing com­ple­tion.

On May 15, 2010, a sig­nif­i­cant part of the west wing of Pres­i­dent's House col­lapsed. De­spite promis­es by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, two years af­ter, a May 2012 re­port by the T&T Guardian showed no sig­nif­i­cant re­pairs had been done. The 2013 bud­get state­ment made no di­rect men­tion of the restora­tion of the build­ings. This was even though Tourism Min­is­ter Cadiz told the T&T Guardian in Sep­tem­ber his min­istry was look­ing to­ward the de­vel­op­ment of her­itage tourism.

Un­der In­fra­struc­ture: Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme, the bud­get list­ed projects in­clud­ing road and drainage pro­grammes, con­struc­tion of and im­prove­ment works for the Fire Ser­vice, de­vel­op­ing lands at Ca­roni and Or­ange Grove, build­ing health fa­cil­i­ties, con­tin­u­ing de­vel­op­ment of port fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing a new port at La Brea, the Debe cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and build­ing 18 po­lice sta­tions.

It out­lined fur­ther the con­struc­tion of ad­min­is­tra­tive build­ings for re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, air­port con­ces­sion­aires, an open-ship reg­istry, the La Brea Port, ex­ten­sion of the Churchill Roo­sevelt-High­way and build­ing four new High Courts.