Rowley's POS Hospital; Tobago Airport openings
POS Hospital
The opening ceremony (March 2025) the facility held a certificate of practical project completion. He said this meant that the actual completion was still “somewhere in sight”. Three quarters of the Rowley's previous Cabinet attended the opening ceremony, which had cost around $1 million. The money was spent on cheese paste, champagne and other items.
Meanwhile, construction continued on the structure for months afterwards as hundreds of items and pieces of apparatus still had to be installed at the time of the opening. There were no beds and no medication, and if someone had been struck with a headache at the event, there was no Panadol in the building, the plumbing was not completed at the time and the bathrooms could not be used. Completion date July 2026.
Total cost : 1.3 billion
Over run...200 million.
Note: So why was this hospital opened , is it to get Rowley's name on a plaque ?
Tobago new airport terminal
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley hosted the formal opening ceremony for the "practical completion" of the new ANR Robinson International Airport terminal on March 15, 2025.
The "Incomplete" Status: The March 2025 event was a technical commemoration ceremony. The building still required extensive airfield lighting, taxiway paving, systems testing, and safety certifications before it could function. Critics called it an empty "shell" and criticized the government for hosting a grand opening for a non operational project.
Full Certification: The terminal finally cleared its legal hurdles and received its official international aviation, safety, and operational certifications on June 14, 2026, finally paving the way for actual passenger traffic.
The "Empty Shell" Irony: The primary source of anger was the sheer scale of the celebration for the non operational building. Rowley hosted a grand ribbon-cutting and plaque-unveiling ceremony withheld the specific price tag of the event
Note: Why was a rush to open...was it a plaque with Rowley's name on it?
The rushed opening ceremonies for the ANR Robinson International Airport terminal and the Port of Spain General Hospital (PoSGH) Central Block were driven by a hard political deadline: Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley was preparing to officially step down and resign from office.
March 10, 2025: The plaque unveiling for the $1.3 billion PoSGH Central Block.
March 15, 2025: The ribbon-cutting for the Tobago Airport terminal.
March 16, 2025 : Dr. Rowley’s official resignation took effect.
The government explicitly defends the project by stating that the initial TT$471.3 million design-and-build contract was only for the structural shell. They argue that the jump to a total of $1.3 billion is not an "overrun," but rather the predetermined, separate cost of phased loan financing and total clinical outfitting .
Sarge
Note:
Securing a Political Legacy:
Because these were the two largest legacy infrastructure initiatives of his tenure, Dr. Rowley wanted his name permanently cast on the bronze commemorative plaques. If he had waited for full operational readiness, the subsequent Prime Minister would have taken the credit and cut the ribbons