PM Kamla pays respects to Sir Ellis at Red House

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and members of her cabinet have paid their respscts to the late Sir Ellis Clarke at the rotunda of the red House and all is set for the state funeral Friday morning.

The public was also allowed to pay tribute for two days as the body of the the first President of Trinidad and Tobago lay in state for public viewing from 6 am to 6 pm on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Condolences books were open to the public at the Red House, the Point Fortin Borough Corporation, the San Fernando Borough Corporation, the Chaguanas Borough Corporation, the Arima Borough Corporation and the Tobago House of Assembly.

Sir Ellis died on December 30, two days after his 93rd birthday.

The state funeral begins at 11:30 on Friday morning at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (Napa) in Port-of-Spain. Sir Ellis will later be interred in a private family service at the Lapeyrouse Cemetery, Port-of-Spain.

There will be a private Mass, which takes place from 9.30 am Friday morning, at the Church of Assumption, Long Circular Road, Maraval. Archbishop Edward Gilbert and Fr Garfield Rochard, the parish priest, will officiate.

A gun carriage pulled by 16 horses from the Police Service’s Mounted Branch will carry the body of Sir Ellis from the Church of the Assumption to the NAPA for the state funeral. It will later take the body to the Lapeyrouse Cemetery for burial.