RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she in­tends to car­ry out Gov­ern­ment du­ties from var­i­ous lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the of­fi­cial res­i­dences at St Ann’s in Port-of- Spain, Blenheim in To­ba­go, her pri­vate res­i­dence in San Fer­nan­do, and sites in Cen­tral and South Trinidad.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day as the de­bate over the fact that she had worked from home all week raged, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her ap­proach is not with­out prece­dent, as pre­vi­ous of­fi­cials have al­so worked from their pri­vate homes when re­quired.

She re­peat­ed this dur­ing the post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day evening.

She con­firmed that she is not re­ceiv­ing a hous­ing al­lowance when she works out of her pri­vate home.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained that her de­ci­sion to work from home was dri­ven by the con­di­tion of the of­fi­cial res­i­dence.

How­ev­er, she not­ed that she does not plan to use her pri­vate home ex­clu­sive­ly.

“There is no ‘in­stead.’ I will use the res­i­dences in North Trinidad, South Trinidad and To­ba­go fa­cil­i­ties, as well as my own home, as and when it is nec­es­sary to do so and when it is con­ve­nient,” she said.

She said in the mean­time, she will al­so use the Red House, where she held her first Cab­i­net meet­ing yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who worked from her Phillip­ine, San Fer­nan­do home for most of the week af­ter both White­hall and the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre were deemed un­fit, said this was not the first time she had done so.

Re­gard­ing ac­tiv­i­ty at her res­i­dence, she said, “We are do­ing re­pairs, in­stalling a more se­cure gate, and al­so in­stalling a more se­cure in­ter­nal gate. There are no ma­jor re­pairs. We start­ed some re­pairs to our home long be­fore the elec­tion was called. The re­pairs that have been tak­ing place over the last week are the in­stal­la­tion of a more se­cure in­ter­nal gate and mak­ing the guard booth more com­fort­able.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she re­mains ac­ces­si­ble and com­mit­ted to her du­ties re­gard­less of lo­ca­tion.

She said she will not lead a Gov­ern­ment that on­ly works in Port-of-Spain. She said the coun­try does not be­gin and end in the cap­i­tal city.

On Mon­day, the of­fi­cial Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence was de­scribed as un­fit due to faulty scan­ners, sewage on the com­pound, and bro­ken fur­ni­ture. Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Bar­ry Padarath, shared video footage high­light­ing some of the is­sues on the com­pound.

Padarath al­so said the St Clair of­fice is over­crowd­ed with staff from two oth­er min­istries, leav­ing no room for him or Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Nico­las Mor­ris.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Blenheim res­i­dence in To­ba­go will be used by her for of­fi­cial vis­its and re­treats when nec­es­sary or con­ve­nient.

On Thurs­day, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley shared videos of the of­fi­cial res­i­dence as it was when he va­cat­ed it in March, as he chal­lenged the sug­ges­tion from Padarath that it could not be used by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Stu­art Young, who fol­lowed him, did not move in­to the of­fi­cial res­i­dence dur­ing his tenure.