Dr. Virginia Albert-Poyotte, Babonneau’s parliamentary representative, said that she was proud of her accomplishments after three and a half years in office.
“Everything I implement is based on what the Babonneau people want. Over the last three and a half years, I have repaired every single community building in Babonneau,” she told supporters at a Townhall Meeting on Tuesday.
The minister stated that what she has done the most “is to engage the people, and I have had hundreds of town hall meetings.”
She also stated that the majority of the promises made in her party’s manifesto has been fulfilled.
She said that the administration of which she is a part of wants to repurpose empty spaces in elementary schools to improve access to Early Childhood Education and Adult Education programmes.
The administration also wants to provide Wi-Fi access to all communities within the constituency.
“I have built six bus shelters in Babonneau, and that is added to the seven we discovered there. Babonneau benefited from GINet and an ICT centre will be established at the Babonneau Multipurpose Centre, she said.
According to Dr Poyotte, the Babonneau Primary and Secondary Schools now have ‘Smart’ classrooms, “and all the other schools have their computer labs.”
She stated that she has provided medical assistance to members of the community, as well as burial and housing services.
“Our social programmes provide educational help to around 550 students. We have repaired nearly 200 homes in Babonneau and built 13 houses for people,” she stated.
The minister said that she promised to provide residents access to land and kept that commitment quickly after taking office.
“The first thing I [did] was to give the people in Talvern access to land at $2.50 a square foot; the land… next to them… is $14.50,” she said.
Dr Poyotte stated that the government will implement a signature project in each neighbourhood, and no signature project will cost less than $100,000.
In Fond Assau, “We have repaired the community hall, we are repairing the court [and] they have the playing area for the infants and so on.”
The government, Poyotte said, is making progress in Ti Morne and Garrand.
“In Des Barras we are working on the community hall, and [in] La Guerre we are doing the junction and [in] Plateau we are doing the tourist lookout point,” she said.
She stated that they are preparing for a variety of projects, but provided no start date, noting that government intends to recommission the Babonneau Agro Processing Plant and that the Babonneau Health Centre “will get some attention.”
Prime Minister Philip J Pierre has committed to a housing project in Talvern, and “We have done some remedial work in Marquis and Grande Anse. We assisted farmers by repairing a road that had been neglected for almost 50 years, allowing them to transport their harvest.”
Dr Albert-Poyotte said she was delighted with her accomplishments thus far and that she has paved the road for other women like herself.
“I am happy to have been elected as Babonneau’s parliamentary representative three years ago. And the Honourable Philip J Pierre has invited me to serve in his Cabinet,” she told the crowd assembled at the town hall meeting.
“Women tend to look at things from different lenses and… when the prime minister gives us one dollar we stretch it… and that is why we give small projects and a lot of women have become contractors now,” Albert-Poyotte said.
“That is the difference Emma [Hippolyte] and myself have brought to ensure that our women can get a little share of the pie,” she said.