Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The $15 mil­lion Lopinot His­tor­i­cal Cen­tre is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in two or three weeks, and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Arou­ca/Lopinot can­di­date Mar­vin Gon­za­les is hop­ing it will be opened be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“Be­cause that’s some­thing we feel very pas­sion­ate about,” Gon­za­les said in his ad­dress at Wednes­day’s PNM elec­tion cam­paign meet­ing in Lopinot.

Gon­za­les de­tailed a num­ber of projects in the con­stituen­cy, in­clud­ing the Tony Ravine Road. He said the Lopinot His­tor­i­cal Cen­tre was in an ad­vanced stage of com­ple­tion, and he was look­ing for­ward to com­mis­sion­ing it in the com­ing weeks.

“When I walked in this com­mu­ni­ty three or four years ago, one of the first com­plaints af­ter wa­ter was the state of the Lopinot his­tor­i­cal site,” he said.

“I lob­bied my col­leagues in the Cab­i­net and brought a cab­i­net note with the sup­port of the tourism min­is­ter, who did great work to en­sure its full restora­tion. I told the peo­ple of Lopinot that this his­tor­i­cal site isn’t on­ly for you but all of T&T, as when we went to schools, we learnt of the Lopinot His­tor­i­cal Site, and when chil­dren trav­elled from all over to come up this road to vis­it this site, it rep­re­sents you!”

“With God’s help and the Cab­i­net’s, a bud­get of $15 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for the full restora­tion, which will be­come a re­al­i­ty for you, the peo­ple of Lopinot,” he said, adding work had al­so start­ed for the up­grade of the Lopinot main road.

Gon­za­les asked con­stituents to imag­ine what would have hap­pened if they had cho­sen UNC’s Jack Warn­er as MP in­stead in 2020.

“I put him in the blast­ed box!” Gon­za­les de­clared.