Red House restoration will be completed by 2013 with local expertise: Mary King

Planning Minister Mary King assured the Trinidad and Tobago Senate on Tuesday that the restoration work on the Red House would be completed by 2013 and that local experts and labour will be employed on the project.
 
Speaking on the motion to adopt the report of a Joint Select Committee (JSC) on the Red House restoration project King noted former UDeCOTT executive chairman Calder Hart had advised parliamentary officials that the project had to be delayed because of the unavailability of expertise.

"We told him (that was) utter rubbish," King said. She was at the time an Independent Senator.

The government Senator said the People's Partnership Government will not waste money, noting that local experts will be involved and that the project will cost "a little more" than $200 million in addition to what has already been spent on the project over the past several years.

"This Government has very clearly stated that it is our mandate and our responsibility to ensure that we will use local expertise where it exists," King said. Foreign experts will work on the project only if such expertise is not available locally, she said.

"We will put in place the processes so that there will be people working alongside the foreign experts, so that we have the required transfer of technology and the next time around we would be able to do it totally locally."