By Clint Chan Tack Friday, September 10 2010

GOVERNMENT will spend $133.7 million in 2011 to complete the upgrade of the Hilton Trinidad.

The upgrade is scheduled for completion in January 2011 and as of March this year, a total of $441.09 million had been spent on the upgrade works at the hotel. These figures were contained in the 2011 Supplementary Public Sector Investment Programme (SPSIP).

The upgrade works, which are being undertaken by Evolving Technologies Enterprise Development Company (Eteck), started in 2005, and the estimated cost of the project at that time was $222 million.

This was twice revised to $484 million, and then to $633.7 million in 2009.

According to the document: “The Government will provide funding under the PSIP in the amount of $109.95 million and Eteck will provide the balance of $410 million through debt financing from the First Caribbean International Bank.”

As of March, $441.09 million was spent on the project and Government anticipates that $58.91 million will be incurred in the period April to September 2010, and $133.7 million is projected for 2011.

The works were undertaken in three phases and five packages. To date, approximately 79 percent of the works are complete.

In his 2011 Budget presentation in Parliament on Wednesday, Finance Minister Winston Dookeran, said Government was considering a proposal to build a 251-room Radisson Hotel at Piarco, and a new luxury resort in Tobago.

The former PNM government was contemplating the construction of a hotel and a business park as part of an overall development plan for the Piarco International Airport.