THE Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) and its boss, Calder Hart, have been given a new project-to outfit, equip and prepare Cabildo Chambers for occupation by the Parliament administrative offices and committee rooms. The Parliament Chamber will remain in the Red House.

Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj told the Express yesterday that Cabinet took a decision in August of this year that the Parliament administrative offices would be moved and the Red House would be prepared to house the Office of the Prime Minister. UDeCOTT has been given both jobs.

Maharaj said UDeCOTT has been given the contract to outfit Cabildo Chambers for use by the Parliament, as well as the contract to fix the Red House for occupation by the prime minister’s office. Cabildo Chambers is situated on the western side of St Vincent Street, directly opposite the northern side of the Red House in Port of Spain.

Both contracts, Maharaj noted, would run into hundreds of millions. Maharaj slammed the Cabinet decision, stating there was no consultation with the MPs, House committees or with the people of this country.

’It is disrespectful to the people,’ he said.

Maharaj said the move was imminent. He said he understood that the attorney general’s office is to be moved by January 2010 to the Government Campus Plaza on Richmond Street.

During yesterday’s sitting of the House of Representatives, Maharaj asked Works Minister Colm Imbert to give an undertaking that the Red House was not being prepared for the prime minister’s office. Imbert ignored him.

’I asked him to get up and say whether the prime minister’s office is going to be in this building, and he has not responded,’ Maharaj told reporters during the tea break.

However, one Government source confirmed that the Office of the Attorney General is moving out of Cabildo Chambers. The source said the Parliament building was in decay, ’was falling apart’, and the Red House urgently needed to be renovated. The source denied there were plans to have to the prime minister’s office moved into the Red House.

’It’s all up in the air,’ the source stated, adding that the talk about the PM’s office moving into the Red House has been going on for five years, ’and nothing has happened’.

The prime minister’s office moved into St Clair last year.

However, another Government source confirmed Maharaj’s statements.

Maharaj said if the chamber remains in the Red House and the prime minister’s office is there, ’the Parliament becomes a department of the prime minister’s office’.

’That is wrong because it undermines and subverts the separation of powers...because the Parliament must not only be interfered with by the executive in such a manner as to run them out,’ he said.

Maharaj recalled that as leader of government business and attorney general during the United National Congress’ term in office, he took measures to make the administration of Parliament independent; there was a joint-select committee for this purpose, and the decision taken was that the Red House was to be restored for the long-term use of Parliament.

’This Government has ditched that,’ he said.

He said when he received the news of the Cabinet decision one week ago, ’I said to myself, ’Calder Hart is prime minister.’’