 Mr. Speaker, permit me this opportunity as a preload to my contribution to this motion to extend condolences to the family of Mr. Norbert Williams, who passed two nights ago. And particularly not the fact that I've known him in the political realm of recent times, but for the fact that I've known him ever since I pioneered the establishment of the Youth Organization, of the organization that I belong to of the recent past. Mr. Speaker, we went our separate ways, but I still recognize the contribution which he made at that time to the development of young people and the molding of young people into the politics of the day, and the contribution he has made in that regard. I extend my condolences to his family on his passing. I'd also like to at least quickly extend condolences to a staff member, former staff of the Department of Infrastructure, Ports and Transport, engineering assistant, a lawyer, sorry Ralph Henry, who also passed in the recent days, I want to extend condolences to his family, and from my constituency, a young man by the name of Aloysius Lolloy Daniel, who himself was a spectacle at any event of music, drama and dance. And sports particularly, he was an outstanding sportsman, one of great repute and certainly the community and the family of Leclerc will surely miss the Lolloy for his skill in sports, his dexterity in dancing and choreography in his presentations. I want to of course recognize him. But Mr. Speaker, in my very short presentation to this motion, which I support and which seeks to give the Prime Minister the authority to borrow US 102 million, 128,294 dollars for a range of initiatives, I want to focus probably on just maybe two areas and leave the rest alone because I think most members have spoken in different ways in terms of the description and the justification for the borrowing here today. And I must admit with a little bit of humor that my good friend from the constituency of Choiselle Saltibus, when he attempted to lay claim to the motion to ask that it be clarified as to whether this motion is one which originated from the previous administration or whether it is originated now from this administration. The thing about it is my dear friend needs to decide what he wants to inherit and what he doesn't want to inherit because I'm sure if we are to give him the benefit of this one, then he must also take responsibility for the failed policies of the last administration in the efforts to resolve the crime situation in this country. So we cannot, we cannot claim one and don't claim the other, but we can always share in some of those, some of those initiatives. And so my dear friend, what we are doing here today is really and truly showing the responsibility of the government, the astuteness of the leadership and the consciousness of this government in doing what is right in the interests of the people of this country. And therefore this resolution, when you look at the description of the areas for which it is being borrowed, you will recognize these are relevant sectors in health, in infrastructure, the reduction of the stock of payables, reduction of land settlement for acquisition, budgetary support, capital expenditure. And as I said earlier, all of this was articulated very clearly, Chris, in the presentation made by the Prime Minister eight months ago. But Mr. Speaker, one of the areas that the Prime Minister has seen the need to borrow this money for and to resolve a situation which has existed for decades. And that is in the area of land acquisition. It is a very vexing issue. It is one that many people, many citizens, you know, they pine over the fact that the asset is taken away, that the properties are acquired for international interests, for national projects. And in some instances, there are some who find themselves in the seat of power and take it even for private use in the name of the public interest. And that we need to avoid happening again in this country and only acquire land in the interests of the people of this country. But more than that, Mr. Speaker, the most vexatious part of it is having acquired the land and then, you know, the gestation period in terms of settling those individuals, paying them for the land, of course, with what is expected to soothe them by saying you've got an interest, an accumulated interest of 6% on that debt. For me, it's worth nothing. The law says that as soon as you acquire the land, you must attempt to settle those individuals as soon as possible to use plain language, layman's language. So, Mr. Speaker, having taken this decision to at least liquidate that debt would stand anywhere in the vicinity of $57 to $60 million in debt in different forms, we now need to determine how do we proceed from here. We now need to determine how do we proceed from here. Because what will happen? This government will come, will get the money, play off all the outstanding debts, and then we continue to borrow and we'll find ourselves in the same situation, maybe 10, 15, 20 years when I'm not around, this parliament will sit again and say, let us find some money, whether it's a form of a loan or whatever to settle those debts. As a consequence, Mr. Speaker, of this recurring situation, I have mandated the Department of Physical Development, which I had, and which is also responsible for land acquisition, to begin to formulate new policy in terms of land acquisition. How should the government fashion policy that will allow for individuals whose lands are taken to benefit immediately upon acquisition are not allowed to wait for such long periods and to, in some instances, the individuals who have died long before the debt is settled. So we are saying we need to find a way to do this. And while we have not arrived clearly on the nature or the structure of the policy or the principles that we're going to adopt, one of the things I have been saying, and I've already shared it with my people, and that is, in land acquisition, if the land is being acquired for a project, the price of the land must form part of the price of the project. Now, obviously, it's always there, but again, governments allow it to go on. So you've got to build a road, for example, the West Coast Road that we're now redeveloping. The government has acquired so far and will continue to acquire quite a portion of land along the highway, from Kaldisak through Rosu Valley along the highway in many instances, slivers of land, etc., to ensure that where we are widening and straightening up of the roads that we need to get additional land to do so. But we need to factor this into the project cost and to pay the people on time. So if the project will cost, say, the execution of the project will cost $27 million U.S., and the land to be acquired will cost $10 million U.S. We must make sure that it is in that figure and that it is allocated, secured, and disbursed upon acquisition, rather than to allow people to wait for when the government has money and will never have money. We'll never have money. We'll find things to spend money on, and we put land acquisition on the back burner, and people are there crying out loud, please help me. I need that money. Now, I believe if you take my land, you pay me the next day. I don't have time to wait, and I'll demand that you pay me the next day. And I expect every other solution to do the same, because you're entitled to it. It's your asset. It's your asset. It's unfair. It is unjust to do such a thing, to take the land and to put it out there, waiting to accumulate a 6 percent interest rate. I believe it is the parliamentary representative for Ansler County, who also said, not Ansler County, Shwazel Saltibas, who also said that we probably now, and maybe the AEG will help me on this one in terms of the interest rate. I'm not too sure whether it is by statute, but we probably need to change it. Big one? Okay. But we need to do that, because otherwise the government will run broke. So my short contribution, Mr. Speaker, is to state that in all of this, in this area, we must attempt to fix a problem to prevent it from reoccurring, and that problem is to ensure that people are treated in a just manner, that if your land is taken for the purpose of public or national development in the public interest, that the government must ensure that the funds are available, whether you get it by loan or otherwise, similar to doing the geothermal project, the renewable energy development project. You go to the bank and get the loan, we need to ensure that we put those funds there so as to pay the people as soon as the acquisition is done. And closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to state that, and I've always said so, and the member for Shwazel Saltibas has also said so, even when he was on the other side, always said that governments will always borrow. Governments will always borrow. But governments must be responsible in borrowing. We cannot borrow in the manner we heard the member for Cassidy Central this morning speaking about. The reckless borrowing, you know, the kind of indiscretion in borrowing, it's almost like once the money, you can get the money, take it. But in some instances, I saw a document here this morning where the government sold a property for $13 million. And the question is, how much did we pay for it? How did we, how much did we pay for the acquisition? Okay, $35, $65 million. So we're able, we are now, we are bold enough to know fully well the price for which it was purchased. And then to descend into making a mockery out of ourselves, out of the law, and the status of our people, and to sell it at $13.5 million. These things should not continue to happen. So, Mr. Speaker, it's about responsible government. It's about government of prudence, being prudent about expenditure. One of the, one of the projects he mentioned this, this morning was a question of the Larissus Road in VFO. A road which was built, unplanned, not in the program of the government, but was done because of an investor who said, I need to reorient a race track, a horse racing track. And so the only way we can do that is to shift the road to give more space for that race track to be oriented in the north-south direction. And who, who pays for it? The taxpayers. The taxpayers are paying for it while you have the member for VFO North clamoring for proper roads, $15 million on one piece of road. And the member for VFO North is clamoring. The member for VFO South is clamoring and begging for better roads. And the member for Miku North is on my case every day asking me to fix up the few roads that he has in that constituency. Mr. Speaker, governments must become comfortable. And so you see in the profile of the loan of the allocations that were made by the Prime Minister from this loan, in health what we are doing to take care of the debt in health based on expenditure pre-COVID and during COVID. The whole question of infrastructure improvement of infrastructure, the reduction of the debt stock, the profile, sorry, the reduction of the stock of profiles, the stock of payables, meaning that all those persons, and none of them are very small business people that the government is indebted to, to settle this thing and to move on. And of course to change the debt profile of the country. So Mr. Speaker, I believe that this today's motion is one that is necessary, it is relevant, and it is reasonable. And it's only a very conscientious leader, a prudent leader, a leader who understands what it is to be responsible for the resources of the state, who can come at this time eight months after, eight months after managing the affairs of the country based on cash flow, can now come and say, listen, we are going out there, we have negotiated, we are borrowing an amount of 102 million dollars US to take care of all of those expenditures having announced it in the budget eight months ago. I want to commend the member and I support this resolution.