Those who travelled to Hopkins for the 19th holiday were greeted by a new main road in the village. It's the product of a Private-Public-Partnership initiative which came up with the approximate $850,000.00 to pave the road in this burgeoning tourist destination. It gives visitors a smoother welcome and spares residents and businesses from clouds of dust.
The project was one spearheaded earlier this year, and 8 months later, it was inaugurated on Saturday with the requisite ministerial humble-bragging:
Hon. Julius Espat, Minister, Infrastructure Development and Housing
"The most beautiful part of it was entrepreneurs like Chef Rob and the other business men in the area said, they never say what do you have for me, boss. They weren't coming with that mentality. They were saying how can we join you guys in making this investment come through. And I told my CEO who, we speak every day, CEO, this is something new, I haven't heard this that the private sector is willing to give up something to receive services and it was true. The ministry of tourism joined in, the private sector joined in by Chef Rob's gathering people together and how could we not join in. We are looking about a mile of road. It cost approximately a million. It was more or less like $800.000. It was divided fairly equally."
Hon. Rodwell Ferguson, Area Representative
"As we look at $800,000 investment, I think it's a milestone and many times people don't understand developments. Everybody want to happen almost immediately and many times you hear them criticized and say nothing is being done, but today this is a milestone, it's a significant achievement for the people of Hopkins."
Hon. Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism
"You can market a product or a service all you want, but if the product isn't package properly, it will fail and so we need the requisite infrastructure to support the beautiful assets that we have both natural and manmade and the cultural diversity that we offer."
The project was for the paving of 1.2 miles of road, along with the erection of road signs.
