An­na-Lisa Paul

Two years af­ter Prime Min­is­ter and Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Dr Kei­th Row­ley urged mem­bers to con­tribute be­yond their means to help with the con­struc­tion of the new Bal­isi­er House, that dream is set to be­come a re­al­i­ty as of­fi­cials will turn the sod in the next two weeks.

Con­firm­ing this was one of the "sig­nif­i­cant" events tak­ing place on the eve of In­de­pen­dence—Au­gust 30—par­ty chair­man Franklin Khan yes­ter­day said the pro­posed en­ti­ty will rep­re­sent a new be­gin­ning for the PNM.

He de­scribed the five-storey build­ing which in­clud­ed un­der­ground park­ing as a "self-sus­tain­ing" en­ti­ty.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters fol­low­ing the PNM's Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing at the par­ty head­quar­ters at Tran­quil­li­ty Street, Khan said "This is the sin­gle biggest thing that will be hap­pen­ing to the par­ty for many many years since this Bal­isi­er House was ac­quired by Dr Er­ic Williams in the 60s. The par­ty has made no sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment of this scale as a par­ty."

Pressed to say how much it was ex­pect­ed to cost, Khan said "That fig­ure would have to be de­ter­mined by the ten­der."

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted it would run in­to the "tens of mil­lions".

The new struc­ture is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide of­fice space for par­ty op­er­a­tions but will al­so fea­ture rental spaces which will en­able the PNM to gen­er­ate a steady cash flow stream for the par­ty's longevi­ty.

The cur­rent Bal­isi­er House is to be re­fur­bished and used as a mu­se­um and archive li­brary.

Al­so tak­ing place on Au­gust 30 will be the first draw­ing of the par­ty's ten-car raf­fle, one of the fundrais­ers host­ed by the PNM to aid in the con­struc­tion fi­nanc­ing. Khan said three lucky tick­et hold­ers would walk away with a brand new ve­hi­cle in the first draw.

Tick­ets cost $100 each. Nine of the cars are Hon­da City CNG cars and the first prize is a BMW 3 CD.

Elec­tion date shift­ed

Mean­while, Khan con­firmed the Gen­er­al Coun­cil had rat­i­fied the de­ci­sion to shift the elec­tion date from Sep­tem­ber 16 to Sep­tem­ber 30 as he in­sist­ed there was "noth­ing sin­is­ter" about it.

He ex­plained that the elec­tion date had clashed with the fi­nal of the Caribbean Pre­mier League T20 which would take place at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um, Tarou­ba, on Sep­tem­ber 16.

Khan said, "Bear­ing in mind that this is a one-man one-vote sys­tem, I think we would have been jeop­ar­dis­ing the elec­tion sys­tem if we had kept it on that date."

Nom­i­na­tion pe­ri­od will run from Sep­tem­ber 3-7 with the 87,000 PNM mem­bers who are cur­rent­ly in good stand­ing. Khan said they are free to con­test any po­si­tion they so de­sire.

PM Row­ley did not at­tend yes­ter­day's Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing due to a pri­or com­mit­ment.