Thank you SherrineBy Andre Bagoo Tuesday, November 10 2009
UDECOTT chairman Calder Hart, whose wife Sherrine Hart has been linked to a Malaysian company his board awarded $668 million worth of contracts, yesterday thanked her for her “tremendous effort and support” as he opened the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain.
Noting that the effort needed to bring home a project like the $518 million academy involves tremendous personal commitment, Hart thanked Sherrine as she sat near the centre of the large performance theatre that hosted the grand opening, a few seats away from Prime Minister Patrick Manning and President George Maxwell Richards and their spouses.
“I want to thank all of our families for their understanding and support. And I also certainly want to thank my wife for her tremendous effort and support,” Hart said, looking towards his wife in the audience.
At the start of his speech, Hart yesterday noted that the air-conditioning in the theatre was apparently low. As Cabinet members, PNM party members, public servants, members of the judiciary and specially invited guests sat occasionally fanning themselves with printed programmes, Hart called for officials of the Shanghai Construction Group (SCG), the company that built the academy to fix the problem.
“I know that someone from SCG is in the auditorium and if I could ask them just to crank up the air-conditioning,” he said, noting that the problem was probably due to heating caused by the enormous theatre’s lighting. A Canadian by birth, he noted that decades ago, he left the cold winters of Saskatchewan, Canada to come to Trinidad.
“When I uprooted myself for my native Canada in the cold winters of Saskatchewan more than twenty-three years ago, I did so with high hopes for this chapter of my life in the West Indies.”
Earlier, Hart had been asked by Newsday to account for claims that his board in 2005 awarded the $368 million contract for the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower to a company that has been linked to his family, via Mrs Hart’s brother and brother-in-law. He had also been asked to explain why he sold his private yacht to the president of a company that was in line for Udecott contracts. To both queries, Hart did not respond as he stood outside the steel and glass edifice of the spanking new arts academy.
Hours later when Sherrine was asked by Newsday whether or not her brother and brother-in-law were once directors of Sunway Construction Caribbean Limited, the company which was awarded the $368 million contract and then another $300 million contract this year for the same project, she too declined comment and was quickly whisked away by supportive acquaintances who chatted among the bustling guests at a cocktail reception held after the opening ceremony in the main foyer of the auditorium.
Hart’s public and personal tribute to his wife came at the start of an almost three hour-long ceremony which saw Manning alluding to the Bible by arguing that his administration will be judged by its deeds and not its words.
“Many can talk but few can build,” Manning said. “As the Bible says, by their deeds they shall be known.”
He called the academy “a masterpiece owned by the people of Trinidad and Tobago.” He said the Port-of-Spain academy and a sister academy in San Fernando both cost US$130 million (TT$818 million). an estimated 60 percent of that total, TT$490 million, was the cost of the Port-of-Spain academy. He announced that the north academy, to be run by the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), is to “formally open its doors” in January 2010. And while artistes have complained in the ongoing Uff Commission of Inquiry of inadequate consultations for the project, he argued that “consultation did in fact take place” on four occasions with several unnamed stakeholders.
“Manning was not trying to fool anyone,” he said. “Vision 2020 is not pie in the sky. We’ve built enough facilities for you to get an idea of what Vision 2020 is.”
Planning Minister Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde, the Udecott line minister, likened the project to a “woman carrying her pregnancy in a climate of antagonism”. Like her political leader she quoted from the Bible (Ecclesiastics, chapter 3), and prophesied that the academy will be revered in years to come.
“I prophesy that this facility will take the arts in our nation to higher and higher levels,” she done.
Notably absent from the opening ceremony was Diego Martin West MP Dr Keith Rowley, who was sacked as Trade Minister after he raised issues of Udecott’s accountability to Cabinet in relation to plans for a hotel on the compound of the academy. Manning did not call Rowley’s name but he repeated that plans for a hotel were always on the cards. Also absent was Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday.
The ceremony featured elaborate performances in the 1,500 seat theatre. There were at times problems with lighting with a single spotlight being manually operated by an employee of SCG and with lights in the auditorium dimming on and off. Also the microphones used on the large stage were not wireless, with cords running across the stage. There was some feedback of the audio and difficulties with the acoustics in the deep, circular theatre.
But those present did not seem to be bothered as the Divine Echoes, Eastern Youth Chorale, Shiv Shakti Dancers and Malick Folk Performing Co entertained.
The Eastern Youth Chorale alone performed three times, singing, apparently in line with the Biblical theme, songs such as the Hallelujah chorus, ‘Days of Elijah’ and ‘The Battle of Jericho.’
