 Well, first of all, I really want to congratulate the organizers, the Municipal Tourism, the Vez Committee, Saint Lucia Tourism Association, and everyone who helped the police in particular, everybody chipped in to make the festival what it was. And I want to thank them, I want to thank them for buying into the vision of giving Saint Lucia a festival that is world-renowned. Giving Saint Lucia a name for something, right? And Saint Lucia, right now, Saint Lucia is known to be reestablished our name as a country where there is a big music festival, a big jazz and arts festival in me. And that's worth millions of dollars. It's not like boxing in paradise. It's something that, that, that it's an international, it's an international event known when the entire world is, and right now Saint Lucia is known, that in me we have a jazz festival that I want to tell you next year is going to be bigger and better. Mr. Pierre, you said the jazz festival is worth millions. More than millions. More than millions. Yes. Take that. You see, first of all, I think it's first of all, first of all, you know our focus is always on the people. You know that. That's our focus. You realize that the economic effect, the economic spilloff, what he called it, is called the multiplier effect was enormous. You could see for yourself, you could see for yourself, you could see the buying, you could see the, the, the outfits, you could see the musicians, you could see the number of local artists. You could see all the people who worked at this, at the, at the park itself. You could see the, the, the enthusiasm of the artists. These artists now have, will become, can become international. We can't be my own pick. I'll tell you something. You cannot run a country where everything in the country is based on party politics. You understand? The jazz festival goes way beyond party politics. It goes way beyond that. The entire country benefits. The entire country. You can see for yourself. You can afford them all. You can have a country that depends on tourism and the people don't get the benefits of tourism. That's been my mantra, Mike, and you're not more than anybody else. When I became a minister of tourism in 1997, my vision was the benefits of tourism should accrue to as many people as possible. At the time, at the time, the then opposition criticized me to, you know, you know that. How can you have a country where you have a dual economy when it comes to tourism? Tourism is about people. You can spend millions of marketing dollars through travel agents, through airlines and such, and when people come here, the local people do not give them satisfaction, you will not benefit. You need to have a, a society where the people buy in tourism. The people who buy into it because they're the ones who work in the hotels. They're the one who are the taxi drivers. They're the one who are the immigration officers. They are the ones, they are the ones who have to be daily contacted people. What jazz does? It just creates a fusion between the people and the tourism industry. And you can't buy that. How many dollars? You know the amount of people who are, who are on social media. You, you saw the number of cameras that, that, that were there. And where, where do you think these things go? Out of the country. Not the only people now who have already booked into come to Indonesia for jazz. The number of people who have called me, who have said this is a week coming next year, next year we have to be bigger. Next year we may have to move it to, to, for two weeks. It's a marketing tool and it's an economic event for the people in the country. It's a marketing tool and an economic event. It's an injection of funds that comes out through the multiply effect. But it's one thing to say that, but it's, it's another thing to show documents to say, hey, yes, yes. Do you want, do you want to have, what do you want to have as, as Sylvie? Okay, tell me, tell me, how much money did, did boxing in paradise been for the country? No, we won't discuss it. All right, this one, I just want to remind you of boxing in paradise because we have tried, we have tried, we have tried, you know, we've tried before and jazz has been most successful. And you must understand, in 1997, we continued the jazz festival, you know, we never said the jazz festival was a creation of any, any political party. We, we continued. In fact, we expanded the jazz festival, we brought it to the people, but there seems to be any time there is anything that will involve people, there's opposition. I don't understand why anything to involve people. We think that we must have all our wealth from horse racing. We can't. Yes, there was a budget, there's a budget for this jazz event. The budget for this jazz event in, it was included in the tourism budget. It was there. It wasn't eight million dollars for the festival. It was eight million dollars in the tourism budget to deal with these festivals. I mean, sir, you, which submissions would be safe and enjoy the jazz over the week or so? Of course! Of course, you saw for yourself. I mean, it was a big, a big peace and love. You saw any, you saw. You didn't see the contentment on the face of a certain resolution, didn't you see the joy? Why, why, why are we always want a country to be tense? Why is, we get tensed and and be fighting and be dealing with things because we lost elections. No, the country was happy. You didn't see the country? You didn't see the lightness in the air? Why are we always looking for tenseness? Why are we always want to be able to want to spread bad news? Let's enjoy the good news. The country will benefit, you know? Because this thing is no use we believe we can create, ah, there's something. When you create a psychological fear in the country of bad news, even though you win elections, it follows you, you know? It follows you. Elections are one day. When you create an atmosphere of dissatisfaction and abuse and vilification of people for political purposes, it follows you. Right now, we need to create opportunities for the people of Saint Lucia. The jazz festival is a creation where you can help opportunities. The musicians get exposed. What about our event planners? People who deal our sound engineers, who are learning from the expertise that come in? Create an industry. Did you make an economy? It's based a lot on music and the creative industries. The South Korean economy is based a lot on creative industries. Why do we always want in Saint Lucia to set ourselves short and to deal with conflicts? Why is conflict always the best news? Because people are disgruntled because they lost elections. Yes. Please. Don't think about artists who fail. The means of tourism dealt with that already. Next one. It's like... It's your word. Well, I knew that. You haven't looked at the means of tourism dealt with the... You know what? The means of tourism, yes. Next question, yes. Another one, I'm coming with you. Yes. No. And that's right. Yes. The return of... The opening of jazz was hosted in New York, in your country. Yes, yes, yes. And by the way, the road was fixed a long time before. But in the aftermath, I saw some persons opening up all in for, what's it? So Kamala finals and then to return to... Is that something you might be... Only what I advocated for was the return of the old jazz to my country. Anything else depends on the people, the organizers. So you won't be advocated or...? I will be advocated. Anything will go to my constituency. But what was up my street was to open it in my constituency. Micah, enjoy this. No, Micah is from there, you know what I'm saying? Mr. President, so just... I guess your four symptoms of the expectations for future jazz non-festivals and how they can work in tandem with our youth economy agency to bring out the best of Senkush's youth? First of all, we have to deal with the timing. Look like the four days span, three days becoming too short, right? The youth economy, and that's doing well. We're doing very well. We are on the verge of getting some external funding. And if you ask, part of the economic reason for the youth economy was to turn young people's hobbies into entrepreneurship. Music, arts, the other creative industries, are part, normally starts as a hobby. It expands into becoming a business, and that's what we're going to do. So we're looking for fusion between the young people, and that is why you see a number of young artists emerging. You see, what jazz does is it gives people exposure, and these young people are saying, listen to me, we can go on the world stage, we can do it. It's a work in progress, it's always not going to happen this year. It's a work in progress, and that's why in the post-mortem, I hope that the officials look at the post-mortem and see how we can improve it. And you guys, you journalists, you must help us. You see, you must understand you also have a responsibility to the country, not a responsibility always to politicians who want to push their own agendas, a responsibility to the country. You are, you are the voice, you have to be the voice of reason to help people, to help people to understand this example. Just to expand on the whole youth economy, the agency has just been open for a bit over a month. I've seen so far about 22 businesses that have received grant funding. Currently there's 100 participants undergoing a business development training. When you see those things budding so early on in the establishment of the youth economy, how do you feel about it in terms of changing the lives of young people and what more can we see from the agency moving forward? Well, you should realize, when the youth economy agency was spoken about, there was criticism. There's a normal criticism that won't work and this and that. And I read it somewhere in a paper about the youth economy and I mean, I felt sorry for the person who wrote it, up to me. Because you should not be so maopic. Or should you not be so be jaundice to criticize something for young people? I mean, something's got to be wrong with you. You know what I'm saying? The truth is, the youth economy is modern exciting. It almost puts some, I mean, you know, I'm told that every day they see more than 25 young people, from all over the country, you know what I'm saying? And again, the location again, maopic views, oh, you put that on the show, say, you know, you create, why do you want to create two societies in Senusia? Why are we trying to stigmatize an entire part of the country? Why are we doing that? The location is strategic and the benefits are showing. What I want to tell you is that we believe that the youth economy is going to grow over time to be one of the largest sectors in the country. Yes. Well, based on the economic review of 2022 and the budget presentation, we saw that the economy is on its way to recovering. But in the budget, I also noted that there was an increase in the public assistance application. And based on what I understand from the equity minister, there was also an increase in the applicants. So we're seeing that while the economy is recovering, maybe some people are still unable to reap those benefits or are still finding it difficult to have a suitable livelihood or household or whatever. Moving forward, have you ensured that maybe what we're seeing in the home of the economy is trickled down to those households and get them out of public assistance? First of all, we have a policy of graduating out of poverty. Graduating out of poverty, out of poverty. That means we don't want you being on public assistance all your life. But here's what happened. We've put $10 million in micro, in small, medium enterprises. What is that? That is grant funding and loan funding. 75% grant, 25% loan. So we are seeing to these entrepreneurs, these women in particular, that here's the thing. The government's gonna help you to create employment for yourself. And that is the importance of both the youth economy and the $10 million injection in the small micro and the SME. That's the difference. For people to create, use their talent to create employment for themselves. Because not everyone wants to work in the industries that we create for them. Not everyone wants to work in the grid. You can't sell me. That you want to impose on people employment that you think is good for them. You understand? You can't. You have to give them the opportunity. And that is what the loan, 75% grant and 25% loan is doing for the community country. And I want to urge St. Lucian, small and micro and medium enterprises to make use of that, of these funds. And there's a lot more. There's a partial guarantee scheme for small businesses. Create, because once you can create, the world is where you open it from, because of the internet, because of e-commerce. You understand? So we create a solution and we sell on the internet. We create a solution and we sell through e-commerce. And that's it. So young, you don't have to look at it only but what's happening in St. Lucia. The technology has given us the world. The world now is our playground. Once we can create world-class goods and that is why the small and micro people, once they can, and if you notice, it comes in tangent with the youth economy. There is training, there is mentorship. Once you can create, you can sell. It's not only St. Lucia, you know. We seem to be looking only at St. Lucia, a little. Not St. Lucia is the world. The world is our playground, the entire world. That's why we've been trying to have false news broadcast to the entire world, because we understand that the world is our playground, the world. Yes. Please, please, please. I hear a lot of talk about social safety, safety net for people who have stuff about entrepreneurs and youth economy, all of that. But there's a wide cross-section of the population that are working and yet still cannot meet the basic needs. Take, for example, a single mother of maybe three children who are in the 1,500 dollars a month, she has a job, she's making a wage, but that doesn't mean that she can take care of her family or take care of her basic needs. Are we going to see anything to help people in that kind of situation? Of course. As we speak, there is a minimum, something I want to call it, liveable wage commission. There's a report that will come to the Parliament, the Cabinet Solution, the Cabinet will opine, and then the discussions come at the livable, where people will say minimum wage. You see, these things come, it's a process that you have to plan. Politicians in opposition normally make these proclamations because they are in opposition. Listen to me. Let me tell you what this government has done to control inflation. This is what we've done, because we seem to have forgotten this was in control inflation. Inflation is a function of outside. As we speak, inflation on the outside is said to be abeting in certain countries, said to be abeting. In the US, inflation was acting 4%. We want to pretend in solution as if we exist in an environment of our own. That is pretence and burden on hypocrisy. Inflation is a function of outside the country. Here's what's called inflation. Not only the price of goods, the cost of shipping. After 9-11, there was supply chains, these functions that created a problem in shipping. Right now, shipping from China, the price is going down, but it has not changed from the US because there's still these and these problems. So, here's what's going to happen. When the shipping situation gets regularized, we hope to see a decrease in freight charges. That should cause the price of goods, imported goods to decrease. And that should have an ease unless the private sector unless the private sector does not work with the prevailing economic environment and bring the prices down. Good. Now, so the minimum, I want to go on the livable wage. It's very important to me because I've been getting that for a long while. The livable wage has to be a discussion between investors, commerce, the trade unions, and the government. You need to have a balance. You need to have a social partnership as far as that's concerned. Because, you see, regardless of how much profit that you make, if the environment, if your workers are not happy, if your environment is not conducive, you're not going to survive. So, the minimum is something I'm very excited about. You work on it and hopefully, I hope that by the end of this year, we should have a wage that will satisfy everyone. But you're very correct. Some people are having struggles, although we've tried our best. The goods in the basket, there's no service charge on them. There's no service charge. They are price controlled, right? And no service charge, they are price controlled. And look at there, there's no vat on these goods either. So, the prices on these basic goods basically are important. Important prices, yes. Another thing. That's 0.5% health and security. Yes. Last labor administration when they introduced vat, it was said that vat would replace all of the tax. No, no, all of the nuisance taxes. You must get it correctly. Environmental levy and it's not all of that. Never said so. But go ahead. Could work differently because I was not aware of that. No, no, it never said all of the taxes. Vat is a tax on transactions. What vat does is that you, when you buy, you pay. Other taxes is upfront. That's the difference. The safe, the health and security levy. How it is going to be worked on, we have to discuss it with the private sector. We don't create any unnecessary administrative burdens on the private sector. So that's a discussion. But let me tell you, it's not going to be on food. It is not going to be on food. Do it in a place like you said. A few nuisance taxes, yes. Nuisance taxes. Consumption tax. Right. You introduced after that and now you're introducing. No, I don't know if it wasn't that pressure and never heard so. Nuisance taxes. I will say, I'm not saying you said there wasn't a tax. I'm just saying people weren't. I'll tell you something. Do you know the United Workers Party passed a security tax? Are you aware of that? Are you aware that the United Workers Party, there is legislation in St. Lucia for security tax by the United Workers Party? Are you aware of it? No, no, are you aware of it? No, no, no. So when we appear, it was actually a levy. When you had politicians speak, they've lost as if they have selective memory loss. Do you know that the United Workers Party passed a bill in the parliament of St. Lucia for a 2% security tax? OK. Right. And the two points like. No, I'm saying it's nothing new. Go ahead, go ahead. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But again, I'm trying to see. Yes. I'm sure the tax is necessary. But with the current that we are facing, is this really the right time to introduce tax? There is never, let's be honest, there is never a right time for taxes. Let's be honest with us. Nobody likes taxes. Let's not be hypocritical and play at some point. There's a right time for tax. Nobody likes taxes. Nobody likes taxes. Nobody. And no government likes to pass taxes. But there's certain things you have to do. We have a situation where we spent over 300 million dollars on hospital that has remained unfinished. We have a situation where our nurses are leaving. We have a situation where we, our security, our security in the country needs to be upgraded. We have a policeman in an environment that needs to change. We have a grossed-in police station that was supposed to be built from 2016. It was left unbuilt. We have a situation where it is only the Labour Party government that has built new police stations in the country. The only government that has built police stations in the country, apart from when in the year 2011, when the Babylon police station was either completed or started. I'm not going into the details of that. The Labour Party government. So our history on providing security is clear. But what has to happen is that somebody must fund it and we are saying to the people of the country, for your health and your security, make a contribution of 2.5%. It's not on food. It's not on medicines. It's not, and then I have not even competed the list of items where the levies will be on. So that has not been competed. But all these in the country, make a contribution. I like to put a tax. Which government likes to put taxes? But taxes are things that countries have to implement for the country to run. Yes, DBS. Yes, DBS. Mr. Prime Minister, just to take your sentiment, are you satisfied with the crime situation in view of what at this particular time I'm looking at the police have written the job to satisfy needs? And also an update on the essential hospital? I will never be satisfied once there is any crime. I can't be satisfied once there is any crime. I want to see that there's been a lull. What's happening now is a social intervention to begin to take place. You're going to have some social intervention. If you listen to my budget, you know there are some funds for crimes, oppression. You're going to have some social intervention that will happen. These are going to begin to kick in. OK? I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The IRS is still here. They're going to be here for some time to work with our officers. And then we hope that we can take the situation, keep the situation under control. But for now, there has been a lull. And we hope that we can move in now with the social interventions to create a better. Then you're likely to want some of the social interventions. The social interventions, we're working with the private sector, the non-state actors to deal with the social intervention. And from that, that's where I live. Because I do not want to get involved. Because these things cannot be partisan. It cannot be political. So the non-state actors are going to be acting on their own. They're going to inform the government. And non-state actors, I talk about the church, the social, the ministry of equity, all the non-state actors, the rising Lucia, Dr. King, Preske Lash, all the non-state actors who have a stake in the country's development.