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Parliament renovations to be finished early next year

Left, Clerk of Parliament, Pedro Eastmond, centre, Minister of Housing, Land and Maintenance, Dr. William Duguid, right, Minister in the Ministry of Housing, Lands, and Maintenance. (Photo by Vonardo Corbin)
By Vonardo Corbin on Monday, 29 November, 2021 at 06:51 PM

Just under a year of extensive restorations to the Parliament building are expected to be completed by April, 2022.

This announcement was made during a progress report held at the site on Friday, by Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance, Dr. William Duguid. 

He noted that loads of work had gone into the renovations at the building so far, and that he was “proud and happy” to be a part of the project. “We are aiming at end of March, early April, but what we are finding as we continue to do the work we are seeing other areas that need a lot of attention,” he said.

The minister noted that they were planning to adjust the ceilings, and to have the stairwell at the entrance to Parliament renovated.

He stressed that it was important to have the building completely restored, so that it would remain without need for any other improvements for years to come.

He stated that work on the building was initially started to deal with issues caused by a rising damp in its library area. Chief maintenance officer with the Ministry, Terrol Inniss, said that new ventilation was placed under the floor to deal with the issue of rising damp.

“But as we looked through and looked at all of the additional work that we had to do, it changed to a complete restoration for all of Parliament,” he explained.

Minister Duguid said that there was a lot of termite damage, concrete floors had to be replaced by wooden floors, having better ventilation systems put in place, and the air-conditioning system swapped. He stated that the bathrooms, the kitchen area, the Senate, and the Lower House, have also been upgraded and improved.

Minister in the Ministry of Housing, Land and Maintenance, Peter Philips, said that the project was being facilitated by the Ministry, and that they had provided job opportunities for some individuals.

“We have sub contracted some of the work so that small contractors again are involved within the whole process to create employment for persons generally which we need very much within the country,” he said.

He added, “This in itself is a very historic building, and we want to really restore it to its glory so that it stands out within not just the country, but overall within the region and the world.”

Mr. Inniss noted that it was important to get everything right.

“We only get to get it right once, and this is the once. So we are going to get it right this time, to make sure that every person who returns to this building feels comfortable being in it.”

He added that the building will also have a new feature for the differently abled. The building will now have what he described as an “evac chair”. It will allow those using wheelchairs to exit the building in the case of an electrical outage, where the elevator would then be out of service.

Officials say that at the end of renovations, Barbados will have a “state of the art”, and “iconic” parliament building to be proud of.

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