NAPA Chinese Construction Scandal
By Andre Bagoo, Sunday Newsday
$80 million to correct flaws in the design of the
National Academy for the Perdorming Arts (NAPA)….
Read more in Sunday Newsday….
$80 million to correct flaws in the design of the
National Academy for the
Performing Arts (NAPA), Port-of-Spain, the
interim President of the
Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT)
Rubadiri Victor, estimated
yesterday.
While Prime Minister Patrick Manning last week
praised the NAPA as being
“world class,” Victor yesterday begged to
differ, saying the facility is
plagued with technical problems and argued that
it does not compare in any
form with Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s.
Discussing a dossier on the NAPA prepared by the
ACTT which has been
circulating on the internet this month, Victor,
a multi-media artist,
said, “$80 million is a realistic estimate of
the costs that would be
involved to correct the defects.”
“It appears as though the firm which built and
designed the facility
(Shanghai Construction Group) may not have been
experienced in building
facilities of this kind,” he said.
The ACTT in their dossier, entitled, “The
Tragedy and Hidden History of
the NAPA”, the coalition of artists also
estimate that maintenance of the
building like the NAPA, which has an estimated
budget of about $500
million, can approach as much as ten per cent of
building cost.
Architects, though, noted that maintenance costs
are difficult to estimate
due to the variables involved, such as the
quality of original materials
used.
Among the defects noted in the ACTT dossier are:
There is no loading area for the main stage;
The stage is “ill-matched” to the 1,500 seating
capacity of the hall;
The orchestra pit is defective;
The light and sound boards are analogue and not
digital (the industry
standard for the last decade);
There are “hundreds of problems with lighting
and sound fixtures and
equipment” The stage floor is “ribbed and is not
a sprung floor so is
ill-suited for dancing and thus will damage
dancers”.
Dance studios are flawed;
There are “no costume rooms, no set construction
rooms and no warehousing
rooms”;
One architect not involved in the ACTT report,
who has been inside the
NAPA yesterday confirmed the flaws identified in
the report and added,
“the floors are laminated and they have begun to
chip already. Because of
materials used, there are also creases on the
stage, which will be a
challenge for dancer.”
“A loading area’s dimensions are normally about
16 feet x 10 feet- NAPA
has a normal door! This means that sets,
costumes of a certain size,
certain musical instruments (hint- one of them
is our national one) cannot
fit through NAPA’s doors to get backstage!” the
report, compiled from a
site visit and other sources, notes.
“The two rooms that have been trumpeted as the
two smaller theatres are in
fact just two rooms. Flat rooms with no seats.
It would cost tens of
millions of dollars to convert these rooms into
theatres.”
“All the light and sound boards are analogue not
digital. They are also
mid-standard and not high-end,” the report
continues. “Most of the
fixtures are completely wrong: There are
literally hundreds of problems
with lighting and sound fixtures and equipment.
Some may sound small to
laypeople but they mean everything to the
technicians entrusted to make
sure shows go on.”
“For instance: the bars that the hundreds of
light fixtures are on are
square and not round. This means that lights can
only be pointed in four
directions (two of them up to the roof!) and not
in gradated choice as on
a round bar.”
Tellingly, signage for technical parts of the
building is in Chinese, an
indication that the design—heavily trumped as
being inspired by the
Chaconia flower—may not have been original to
Trinidad and Tobago.
Additionally, “There are no dressing rooms
within reach of the backstage,
and no clothing racks, showers and a host of
other amenities in the
dressing rooms that do exist. This probably can
be rectified but it will
cost.”
“There are no monitors for backstage and for the
stage manager. This
probably too can be rectified — but it will
cost.”
“The stage-floor is ribbed and is not a sprung
floor so is ill-suited for
dancing and thus will damage dancers. Theatrical
floors are ‘rigged’ so
that dancers can dance on then — they have a
bounce to absorb and cushion
dancers — otherwise it’s like you are dancing on
concrete.”
“The dance studios are completely unsuited for
dance. The dance-rooms have
concrete and terrazzo floors; have dance bars
too high; and have mirrors
on both walls creating a circus infinite-mirror
effect. This means there
are effectively no dance studio spaces in NAPA.
New properly constructed
dance floors will have to be built, one mirrored
wall will have to come
down and all the dance bars taken down and
re-hung.
To add to the litany of complaints, “there are
no costume rooms, no set
construction rooms and no warehousing rooms.”
Members of the ACTT include Fabien Alphonso,
president of the Recording
Industry Association of Trinidad and Tobago
(RIATT) and Andre Reyes,
president of the Artist Teachers Association.
“I don’t know how it could be that the firm that
got the contract has a
competency in building a performing arts
centre,” Victor, who appeared
before the Uff Commission of Inquiry into
Udecott, the state corporation
that built the facility, said. “This is a
tragedy of an immense
proportion.”
President of the Joint Consultative Council of
the local construction
industry Winston Riley yesterday noted that
aside from functional
problems, there have been concerns about the
construction materials used
for the project.
“There are serious concerns about it as an
academy,” he noted, “but we
have been concerned about the use of mild steel
in the building which we
believe would put the building under risk.”
The NAPA was reportedly built pursuant to a
Government to Government
agreement between Trinidad and Tobago and China,
at an estimated budget of
about $500 million. There was no competitive
tender for the project which
was handed to the Shanghai Construction Group,
the same company that built
the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic
Centre. Efforts to contact
SCG were unsuccessful.
When Manning, who had come under fire for his
constant defence of Udecott
in the face of compelling evidence of corruption
at the state enterprise,
opened the building last November, he called it,
“a masterpiece owned by
the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”
At a press briefing last week in London for
Commonwealth observances,
Manning, the chairman of the Commonwealth, noted
that the opening ceremony
for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(CHOGM) took place at
NAPA. “All in all my dear friends, I think that
we were pleased with the
outcome. Of course, we were able to expose to
the international community
a new facility in Port-of-Spain: a National
Academy for the Performing
Arts (NAPA) which as everybody saw, we believe
is acknowledged to be a
world class facility in a small developing
country, seeking and striving
to take its place among the great countries of
the world,” Manning said.
Udecott has blocked attempts to have an open
media tour of the project.
“Taxpayers are going to have to live with this,”
Victor said yesterday.