Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth – A project described by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller as a “benchmark for community water supply systems across the island” was formally commissioned in Cotterwood, St Elizabeth on Thursday, aimed at providing domestic water for more than 3,000 people in the parish’s south west.

The Cotterwood Water Supply System will supply Content, Brompton, Shewsberry, Fyffes Pen, Sellington and their environs.

Conceived four years ago, the community-managed project, funded and developed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Government of Jamaica and the Cotterwood-based Five Star Development Society, cost US$1.5 million.

It is one of four such projects being developed across the island with funding from an IDB loan worth US$10 million.

Contending that it was “heart-rending and painful to see our children and senior citizens, our women and men” walking in search of proper drinking water, Simpson Miller said the project was in line with her commitment to get piped domestic water into every Jamaican home.

“Water is a priority for this Government,” declared Simpson Miller.

Referring to figures which show the percentage of Jamaican households with piped water moved from 61 per cent in 1990 to 71 per cent in 2001, Simpson Miller said “I will not be comfortable until we are able to announce that we are at the 100 per cent mark..”

The Government has set 2010 as the target year for total access to piped water by Jamaicans.

Hailing the Cotterwood project as “a significant marker in non-conventional approaches to rural development”, Simpson Miller said Cotterwood was one of 15 communities with a total of 7,500 people immediately targeted under the Government’s Rural Water Programme.

She also spoke of plans for 25,000 people in St Catherine to benefit from improved water supplies.

Tracing the genesis of the Cotterwood Water Supply System, Juddy Powell of the Five Star Benevolent Society recalled that it “arose from a concern that the community had outgrown the water system that was in place.”

And drawing attention to the provision of water to a range of communities in South West St Elizabeth during his stewardship, Member of Parliament Danny Buchanan said while much remained to be done, important progress was being made.

He triumphantly revealed that the new “Pedro Plains Irrigation system is now completed and in February, the prime minister will be back” to commission that project.

Housing, Transport, Water and Works Minister Bobby Pickersgill and his junior minister, Fenton Ferguson, were among those bringing greetings and imploring the community to manage their new water system properly.

The function took a humorous and unplanned turn when the prime minister and her ministers ended up giving $10,000 to several children who had participated in a ditty imploring the community not to waste water because “it is a precious commodity”.

Pickersgill had no idea it would cost him much more when he offered $1,000 to any child that could spell ‘commodity’. A nervous 12-year-old spelt the word after two attempts.

Simpson Miller followed suit, gifting $2,000 to a boy who spelt “water”. And urged on by an amused audience, the prime minister cajoled Buchanan, Ferguson and Pickersgill to make more cash prizes to children to arrive at the final figure. The winners included a seven-year-old who announced that the prime minister was “Portia!”