As the Parliament Channel gets set to celebrate its tenth anniversary on Thursday, members of the public have been invited to participate in a series of tours during which they can visit the Parliament chamber where national decisions are decided upon daily by leaders in Government.
The open house will continue today and on Friday, with a parliamentary expo being held along the Hyatt Waterfront tomorrow and Thursday.
Scheduled to begin at 9 am yesterday, the first tour got off to a somewhat late start with the lone visitor, Junior St Hillaire, being escorted to the second floor by Parliament’s senior administrator Marion Sutherland and corporate communications manager Jason Elcock.
Under the watchful eyes of a uniformed police officer, he was treated to a tour of the parliamentary chamber where he was allowed to sit in the Speaker’s chair as well as those occupied by the Leader of the House (24), the Prime Minister (23) and the Opposition Whip (25).
He was also given a guided tour of the control room and offered a peek into the room housing the computers mainframe, along with a walk-through of the J Maurice Hamilton Room where the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meetings and Joint Select Committee (JSC) meetings are held.
St Hillaire, who is employed at TSTT, said he learned of the open house during a series of newspaper and television advertisements.
Admitting that he was, “curious to see where our legislators sit,” St Hillaire said he became interested in the Parliament’s operations as he got set to pursue a Masters in Business Administration.
St Hillaire said: “I maintain that we have put them there to do a task and we can now watch everything they do and not let them go about on a whim and fancy.”
Although the open house is being held during the school vacation period, Elcock said several police youth clubs and other agencies were invited to participate—and that a special invitation had been extended to broadcast students from tertiary level institutions.
Revealing that the Parliament’s operations had relocated from the Red House to the Hyatt Waterfront in 2011, Elcock was unable to provide a status update on the restoration works that were underway. However, he said unconfirmed information was that it was due to be completed in 2018.
During the tour, Sutherland sought to impress the importance of the dress code for visitors to the Parliament building.
Seeking to encourage more members of the public to visit the seat of Parliament, Sutherland said: “Many persons are unaware that they can access the public chamber when there are sittings once seats are available. We want to highlight our operations and encourage more persons to come in and view what takes place here.”
Following the tour, St Hillaire indicated that he was now more educated as to the environment in which parliamentarians operate and better informed as to why certain measures were in place.
The public is invited to attend today’s open house which begins at 9 am.
St Hillaire responds to Gate changes
Meanwhile, the 39-year-old Morvant resident commended the Government for the tremendous assistance provided by the Government Assisted Tuition Expenses (Gate) programme since it was first introduced in 2004.
Having just completed his Bachelors Degree in Business Administration and set to pursue his Masters at the beginning of October, St Hillaire spoke candidly about the joy he experienced upon learning of the programme’s offerings.
Accepting that he would now have to foot his tertiary education bill following the Government’s decision to cease funding postgraduate programmes unless they were in alignment with the country’s developmental goals, St Hillaire said, “I believe people have to accept some of the changes. Not everybody is going to be happy with it, but given the financial situation the country is in now, we have to take that into consideration when we are doing things. It is for the greater good of all.”
Admitting that he had grown up in poverty stricken times where he had to wear shoes and clothes with holes in them, St Hillaire credited the Gate programme with affording him a better quality of life.