 I'd like to invite everyone to please stand as we call on our visiting pastor for this evening Reverend Floyd Hillman, who will open us in a word of prayer, and then we will have the national anthem. Good afternoon to all. Shall be prayed. Father, how excellent is your name in all the earth. In all the earth, we bless you and thank you because there is none like you. There is none that can be compared to you. You deserve all the praise and all the honor and all the glory. We thank you Lord that this nation is still a God fearing one. It is so good that in St. Lucia, you are honored in this way. We thank you because prayers are still an essential part of the agenda in government functions. Lord, you said in your word, I will honor them that honor me. So honor us today with your presence. Today we are thankful for this group of St. Lucia who have lived overseas for a number of years, but have made the decision to return to the land of their birth at this time. We pray that their reorientation into this inclusion society and culture will be a pleasant one. And even if they have the occasional unpleasant experience, help them to be gracious and to be thankful to you anyhow. Lord, they are returning with a wealth of information and experience. And I pray that they will freely share these with the rest of our St. Lucia society. I pray also for Dr. Fletcher who is at the head of this initiative, grant to her wisdom and grace, oh God, as she goes about this very important task. I pray that you will bless our proceedings today. And I pray that whatever is done this afternoon will be pleasing in your sight. God, once again, be magnified. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' precious name, amen. God bless you. Remain standing for the national anthem of St. Lucia. Very much ladies and gentlemen, you may please be seated. Let me take this opportunity to thank you to this meeting and discussion of diaspora affairs in St. Lucia. As most of you would have noted, the Ambassador Her Excellency Dr. Joyce Lynn Fletcher has arranged a number of town hall meetings outside of St. Lucia. So she's gone, I don't know if Cayenne is so far, but she's gone. That was the last place she just came from. Cayenne, she's been to the UK. She's been to a few cities in the US and we're here in St. Lucia. You're not last, but they always say you saved the best for last, yes? So we're here today to present to you the returnees or the International Association members of St. Lucia. To present to you, perhaps you've heard a lot of what is happening in St. Lucia and perhaps you've had a lot of misinformation and tonight is an opportunity for you to hear straight from the horse's mouth what is happening in St. Lucia, what are the opportunities available and I'm sure there would be opportunities as well for there to be a discourse in perhaps seeking clarification from your end if there's anything that you wish to clarify. To begin our proceedings this evening, I would like to invite the Ambassador to present the diaspora resource team, as you know. No one is an island and there's nothing that we do that we can accomplish on our own and so please put your hands together and welcome the Ambassador as she introduces to us her diaspora resource team. Mrs. Charles said no man is an island and this initiative could not succeed in St. Lucia without the help of two groups. Now one group was already established, I found them here, but this diaspora team, I'm gonna tell you a little more about them when I speak to you, but I need to let you know and let St. Lucia know that these people are not paid by the government of St. Lucia, I think all they get are coffee and cookies and they come together to assist the office of the diaspora affairs unit simply because they are committed to the social and economic development of St. Lucia and that they believe that the diaspora matter, that you are important, that your contribution to St. Lucia is important and that they have partnered with us to assist you, to answer your questions, to give it to you direct in any area and I told them the areas that was important, the areas that you were questioning me about, so I went to them because I may be a doctor, but I don't know a third of anything and therefore I needed that team. I'm going to begin that in the customs department and you know diaspora have a whole lot of questions about port charges and all the things and what diaspora is, what is being done, the government is being done for the diaspora when it comes to port charges and of course we have Mr. Elisha Nasses on that team. We also have Ms. Camille Michel from Invest St. Lucia. Invest St. Lucia have a whole lot of them. We have Mr. Filbert Lubrin, we have Ms. Shirley Elidore. Now let me tell you, every time the group meets they are certain that somebody from Invest St. Lucia must be there, okay so I'm going on. We have Mr. Jason Bidal from Expo St. Lucia and Ms. Lisa Evans from Expo St. Lucia, so one is always there. Now I'm saying mostly these are not junior officers, these are senior officers and you'll hear later on how such senior people can take time off their jobs and come and meet in a meeting with me in the office of the prime minister or meet with the diaspora via Zoom, diaspora representatives, that's how much they care, that's how much you matter and your concerns matter to them. Okay, we have Mr. Kovbert, and I always can't say his last name well but if I make a mistake, Kovbert please forgive me. It is Kovbert McDermott, all right I said it well and Mr. McDermott is the project coordinator at Proud and you know people want to buy house, government houses, he will answer that. Mr. Vincent Bolan, who is the managing director of SLDB, you see Mr. Bolan is here and he is not the only one but you know they always present and he's here. Now imagine a managing director, I mean you can't get better than that. Then we have Mr. Medford Francis who is the deputy manager of Bank of St. Lucia. So when you're asking all kinds of things, I can't open an account in St. Lucia, I cannot put my money here to invest, I cannot do this, they will answer your questions and tell you what is happening in St. Lucia. So the information you get is wrong, they have the information about what is happening and they have things target directly for diaspora to enable you to invest, to trade, to give back. Then we also have Mr. Glad Taylor who is the CEO of Vision Express and Private Real Estate. So persons who want to buy private real estate, he answers those questions. We have Mr. Sirosa Snack, now that's our legal, legal, Sirosa, I hope I said it well, Sirosa, right? Okay, okay. This gorgeous young man is a legal, legal and he's worked in the attorney general's office and when our team puts together policies that directly affect and impact the diaspora, they are there to put it together, take it to cabinet. Nothing is left undone for the diaspora. So you're getting it today, let no one fool you. You can ask your question, they're here today. We also have Mr. Allison Matry who's the Executive Director of SSDF. Now I'm gonna tell you diaspora exactly what this young man and his team has done for the diaspora and they've gone so far that they have even signed an MOU with the Union of Senutia Overseas Association. So I don't want to preempt my delivery, I'm just introducing them. Then we have Mr. John Labidi who is the Chief Surveyor in the Ministry of Physical Planet. A lot of people want to buy government land. A lot of people want to know how problems in their land. And so he is there to answer those questions for you. And I will tell you later what they do and how they do it and let you know how involved they are and all they get, coffee, sandwich and cookies and they come and sit and they're committed. And so most of the representatives are here. Could you just stand, those of you here, so that of my diaspora team resource team so that the people can see you here and know that they really exist. And let us give them a resounding round of applause. They are a very important group of people and Senutia will be hearing a lot more about those people because I am extremely grateful for them. Thank you very much. And I call them the extension of the Office of Diaspora Affairs. I came to Senutia and I met that team when I started this office. And of course, a year prior to that, I knew when I was offered this job, I decided to work with them before I ever came to Senutia so I could prepare myself when I get here. What I did on the phone and in emails was nothing compared to what happened in person. These two groups have been fantastic, but they SLI, Senutia International Association that they have a North group and a South group and what they do is that if you, they are made of persons who were in the diaspora, worked for years in the diaspora, came back and invested and given back. And when you in the diaspora want to come back to Senutia, they help you reintegrate into the society. So once my office knows you're coming in, we tell them, so if you're going in the North, the North take care of you. If you're going in the South, the South take care of you. We're the only island, only country in the region and I have been going to other regions and I've been boasting and I'm proud that only Senutia has an SLIA. Now Nancy's going to tell you about their names and so on, but I just want them to stand up. The international group, please stand up so that the people can give them a resounding round of applause. They are the extension staff of the Senutia diaspora unit. The Senutia International Association diaspora unit, that's what I call them. Thank you. Nancy will tell you, go on. Just by way of introduction of the leaders of the two chapters, as Dr. Fletcher indicated, we have a southern group and we have a northern group. The chairperson of the southern group is my auntie. Auntie Lucille Fontenelle, Oco, please stand. Oh yes, I have to say it's my auntie. And the chairperson of the northern group, what I can call you auntie as well, is that okay? Okay, she's none other than Mora Bernard. Thank you very much. I sat down and I was writing and I was like, wow. I was not very pleased, I have to tell you audience, with the applause for the team that the ambassador has put together and for the generosity of the time that the members from customs invest Senutia, Senutia Development Bank, Bank of Senutia, proud Vision Express, AG Chambers, SSDF, and our chief surveyor, I would like you to give them another resounding round of applause to thank them and to appreciate them for the hard work and the effort in ensuring that our fellow St. Lucian's, when they come back home, they make sure that they are comfortable and there are processes and procedures that will enable them to go through smoothly in integrating back into St. Lucian's. So thank you very much. But ladies and gentlemen, he needs your introduction. He's a gentleman of many talents, Leslie. You've surprised me over the last couple of weeks, but I would like to introduce Mr. Leslie Collimo, who is the chair of the return diaspora youth entrepreneurs to speak to you this evening. He's going to use a cordless mic and so he's going to be down. He's not going to come up there. I think he needs to be a bit more interactive with you. So he will be addressing you from down below. Please put your hands together and welcome Mr. Collimo. Okay, I have to talk about my experience, our experience. It was another presentation that I was making to Ambassador Fletcher and she looked surprised that there were individuals on the island who could do certain things in business. And I said, well, you know, home half, home half. So that is the title of the presentation today. Home half. So a little about myself. Just so that you know who you, who's speaking to you. My name is Leslie Collimo. I'm the principal consultant of Advanced Intellectual Method. This is a short, that's the reader's digest version of what I've been able to accomplish. Former head of marketing at DigiCell, former assistant marketing manager at ECFH, group of companies. Former group marketing manager at MNC, group of companies that's 25 years old. I have no idea MNC knew what they were doing at the time. Associate consultant at Google on the Google Earth project. E-marketing officer at the San Ushah Tourist Board. Training analyst at Syvellance. That is something that I hardly ever share with anybody. And Syvellance is an offshoot of the Central Intelligence Agency and they're responsible for really developing applications to predict bad things. So I had the opportunity to work there a long time ago, post 9-11. Teen center director at the Boys and Girls Club, president of the San Lucia Basketball Federation, US green card holder, I had to put that in there to let you know it is a choice to be here, to come back and to contribute. It is a choice. So that is very, very important. So what's not on there? I'm a father of two boys and they are my motivation for everything. Right, okay. So let's move on a little bit. Who's him? Really? We are management consultancy, we focus on strategic marketing, we focus on innovation and we focus on digital media. That's really what we are. That's it. But this is not about me and my company, bigger than that. Much bigger, it's bigger than me. I represent a group of returned diaspora who have lived, worked and played all over the world but returned home to contribute professionally, economically, socially and civically. We returned by choice. And this is just a group of the skill sets that we have. Finance and banking, medicine, logistics, aeronautics, marketing, destination management, project management, web and mobile application development, culinary arts, performing arts, professional athletes. Anybody ever heard of Terence Mann? No, he's an NBA player. All right, Chris Boucher, NBA player for the Toronto Raptors. There are a few of them out there. That's a solution. Fashion designers, information technology, computer science, makeup artists. There's an individual who has her own line of makeup and she's St. Lucian and resides in the diaspora. Telecommunications regulators, engineers, accountants, mobile technology, entrepreneurship, investment services and the list can go on and on and on. So again, it's bigger than me. It's a large group of individuals. Our collective mantra, learn, earn, return. Right? We went out, we got an education. We worked, we developed a skill. We built a network all over the world. We gained experience, we earned respect and recognition. Maybe made some money. You see I underlined and I put asterisks by that. I really wasn't sure, so I just stuck that in there. Knowledge sharing, very important. And we believe it's our civic duty to actually come back and give back. Right, so a few members of the team here today. Ms. Petter-Louisey, undergraduate degree in mathematics from Pierce University. Graduate Master of Science in Applied Data Science from Syracuse University. So I want to share a statistic with you. For the first time in human history, the price of data has surpassed the price of oil. Just put that in perspective. Data has surpassed the price of oil. Information is everything in the 21st century. She loves to laugh, needless to say she's very, very smart. She's a U.S. passport holder. She's an American citizen and she's back in St. Lucia. Petter, where are you? Petter, please stand. Please stand, Petter. All right, next. Giden Augustine. He is the managing director of a company called IDENTEC. He's an Information Communication Technology Professional. He's a PMP, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with honors. He's worked and lived regionally and internationally and brought his skills back home to contribute as well. Next up, Ranking Morgan. Ranking needs no introduction. The managing director of 123 Digital, the premier digital marketing agency on the island. He's also a publisher. He runs the Dazzle magazine. I don't know how many of you have ever seen the Dazzle magazine. Impressively, he's been able to expand to St. Vincent and Barbados. So again, you have Ranking here. Ranking gained his experience in the United Kingdom and treated that in Tobago. That's where he earned his chops, but again, decided to come back home. All right, why are diasporas so important? Diasporas is sizeable, skilled, well-educated, and oftentimes affluent. That last part, I have no knowledge of that, but I see some good people in the crowd. I would dare to say that you probably fit that mold. Share heritage and strong national connections. That is very important. You know, we ought to support our own if I am looking to partner with somebody, I will always look to partner with my own first and then my regional counterpart and then probably move out after that. Instrumental in financial, social, but more importantly, human capital investment. My decision to come back to St. Lucia was because almost everybody who goes away to school, they stay away. They get opportunities, they work, they live, and they stay away. How are we supposed to build a nation? If nobody comes back, I came back. Can solve many of the socioeconomic and environmental issues that we always seem to rely on governments and external agencies to face. The diaspora have a breadth of experience in a lot of issues. We need to tap into that, leverage that experience, leverage that knowledge, and fix things. It's not always the government. And I am apolitical. I really care about that sort of thing. However, I understand the importance of it. Let's, the diaspora is there, let's use them, let's fix things. But there is an issue. So I heard all of the wonderful things. I had brief discussions with her excellency about the plans. However, we don't know where to look. How many of the diaspora coming back are aware of all of these things and all of these plans and nowhere to look? Anybody? I mean, they're wonderful plans, but do we know where to get that information? And I know we're just starting off, but this is our experience. Those of us who have come back, we did it blindly. We would always look to partner with and support our own. But where do we connect with each other in a central space? And in the 21st century, a central space doesn't have to be in the town hall with the wonderful air conditioning. It can be done digitally, right? So that's one of the things that we need to look at. And I hazard a guess and say that the team being the newly minted chair of the, what's it? Diaspora, youth diaspora entrepreneurs, we should be putting our proposal together to create some sort of database and space where we can seamlessly transfer all these wonderful plans that Her Excellency spoke about. Additionally, many of us don't have a seat at the table to contribute meaningfully. All of these plans are being made now that I can say, oh, you know I'm a chair. I've gotten a seat, but it's not about plans being made outside of us and excluding us. We need to be there, not because of nepotism. We need to be there because we've earned that spot. We've worked for it, we've gained the experience. We just need to be able to give some input. What support services and systems are there to support the effort locally, regionally, internationally? So you can see this was completely not scripted. There is a support team that is in place now. And again, let's take some time and give Her Excellency and her team and the Office of the Diaspora a round of applause for that. See that? And that's the effort locally, regionally and internationally. The diaspora is everywhere. So, you know, I like numbers. Numbers never, people like numbers don't. 90% of Caribbean diaspora want to engage more formally with the region and the sources will bank. This is not just me pulling numbers or petal the mathematician and data scientist just spitting things out. This is from the whole bank. My diaspora story. See these three images, that's my story. That's me, you couldn't figure it out. First slide. So, I figured, you know what? We always, always allow for various reasons foreigners to come in, set up, do business and leave. So I figured, you know what? I'm going to return the favor. I am going to tap into the diaspora because I have services that I can provide to the diaspora in other source markets. So, I went to New York. So I figured, all right, where's the diaspora? I happened upon Ambassador Richardson's office to get some information. I was searching, where do I go to find them? Who do I target? I was lost in New York City. So, all these things you see there, lost, confused, unsure, unclear, perplexed, disoriented, bewildered, and the word of the day, flummoxed at the inability for me to get information and to start business. So, that is my diaspora story. It is deeply personal. So, I am very pleased that the Office of Very Excellency is strategically putting these things in place so that it will be easier to pave the road for those who are coming up behind us. And that brings me to the end of the presentation. I know we have some flag mafia that may not be the actual color of the flag. I do not wish to hear your comments and your feedback. All I would like right now probably is some applause and some, this was fantastic. If you have a flag comment, keep it to yourself. And remember, say it, let's throw it together. Thank you. As we continue, I know if Mr. Colimo's presentation, he asked about what is happening and where do you find out. Perhaps tonight is one of those nights where you find out. So, Ambassador, before I call you, I know that slasper is here. And the government of St. Lucia is currently undertaking a huge project in the south, which is the Huranora International Airport redevelopment project. It is one of the flagship projects of this government. And I think it is one of the projects, perhaps our traveling community would appreciate when it is completed, that you can walk into St. Lucia in style and you won't have to get wet and you can be comfortable when you are walking and think, mm-hmm, I'm home. Welcome to St. Lucia, right? Okay, so I will call on Mr. Peter Lewis, who is the communications and community liaison officer for the Huranora International Redevelopment Project, who will make a brief presentation followed by a video presentation of the project. You say a town hall meeting, but it feels a little more Porsche than that. In our town hall meeting, you come in your T-shirt and some people on one side making a little noise, heavy music and so forth. So I don't think I want to call it a meeting. I think a special ceremony, I would take that. But I am very happy to be here and represent St. Lucia A&C Port Authority as we embark on behalf of the government of St. Lucia in a once-in-a-lifetime transformational project. And I say so because I am not being cheap with my words or I'm not being flamboyant by any stretch of the imagination, because 175 million US dollars is not chump change. But what 175 million US dollars in the Huranora International Airport Redevelopment Project seeks to do is to increase all that is good in St. Lucia by means of trade, by means of access, by means of tourism, by means of conforming to international standards and putting our footprint on the world map. We have done so with our Nobel laureates. We are continuing to do so in sport and music, but this project seeks to transform the length and breadth of the world. But this project seeks to transform the length and breadth of St. Lucia. So you ask yourself, why should the government of St. Lucia embark upon this project? And it's interesting that we're talking to the diaspora because as you come in and out on your usual visits, sometimes it breaks your heart. You're happy to be home, but you're at an airport facility where if it rains, you will know. If it is too hot, when you've come from minus degree conditions, you will feel it. And then there's the wait, the wait to be processed, the wait to get your luggage and all of that. The fact that family can't park and have to make several rounds to pick you up and so forth. I do not want anyone to leave this evening thinking that the airport redevelopment project is a project confined to tourism, but it is a project about us. We use that facility. Our families use it. The friends we invite use it. And so it is important and it speaks about each and every single one of us. At Slasper, we say that the HIA redevelopment project is improving our hello to the world. And our staff of 450 strong stand by this project. And we thank the government of St. Usher for placing faith in Slasper for executing this project, just as we have done several other projects. But let's get to the facts. Uranora has to improve. It has to improve because we have been using this facility since 1941. Everybody knows the math. So yes, I was saying, and the captain approves it, that Slasper has successfully managed several projects, including the reconstruction of our booths, the breasting dolphin project, continuous upgrades to Uranora International Airport, up till the last major upgrade, which was many years ago, some 1991. So this project seeks to encompass three major areas. The air side, the terminal, and road access and traffic management systems. This is a 30-year master plan, which seeks to provide a state-of-the-art airport facility that will serve as a modern gateway, thus enhancing the passenger journey, while at the same time meet international aviation protocols and standards. With an extensive collection of up-to-date services, Uranora International Airport will meet the needs of St. Lucia's tourism industry and will underpin the broader national macroeconomic development goals. And I know if our full complement of cabinet of ministers were here, maybe we would hear them knocking something. Because we're saying that this project is going to open up several aspects. And having the diaspora present, you yourself can add value to such a project, because an airport is just a facility. But several things go into that. The airport facility, with the architecture inspired by our very own Kalabash, our national tree, the terminal building will feature efficient check-in, passport control, and security, while offering a level of comfort in a customer-friendly and aesthetically pleasing environment. Upon completion, the new airport facility, the road infrastructure and traffic management system will be upgraded to complement the revamped ground transportation systems, thereby easing access. Ultimately, and this is important, our new HIA will suit the present and ever-growing demand of our people, trade, and tourism industry. So we said that the project is being undertaken by Slasper on behalf of the government of St. Lucia. And our architect CBR Iheere are well known for their experience in designing airports. Our contractors are the overseas engineering and construction company, which is a Taiwanese-based firm with many years of experience in actual airport construction. If you want to see their work in the region, all you have to do is visit Argyle International Airport in St. Vincent, which they recently completed sometime last year. And that airport has been commissioned, and so we can get a serious feel for their work. I am through with that part, my presentation. But I would like to say here that we at Slasper are very excited for this project. We are excited for the fact that it is going to complement where we are St. Lucia want to see ourselves. It is about everyone. It is about the diaspora. It is about our young people. It is about improving business. It is about offering us as a nation more opportunities to expand our horizons. We ask you for further information to keep in touch with us and feel free to give us your comments. You are free to link with us at www.slasper.com. And you can click the link for the HIA project, where we will be giving you continuous updates with regards to that. At this point, I'd like to thank you very much for your time and just take a listen from the eyes of children what the HIA redevelopment project seeks to do. Thank you. Mommy says that we in St. Lucia are building a new international airport in view for. It will be the best in the entire Caribbean. I like going to the airport. I love the sounds of the airplanes landing and taking off. Our new airport will be two stories. The top is the parches and below arrivals. It is more than 337,000 square feet. It will be three times the size of the airport we have now. Wow. Now that's a lot of space. You can come up to the airport on a new ramp that will put you on the top floor in the departure area. Before going into the check-in area, there is an open space called the curbside. From the curbside, you enter spaces with glass all around. It's bright and fresh. The arches of the building are inspired by the branches of our national tree, the calabash. Right, Mommy? There are many check-in counters with the latest technology so that you can check and drop off your bags fast and easy. Thank goodness. Finally, no more unlined. The new Uranora International Airport is decorated with beautiful Saint Lucia art and has lots of trees. It's like a forest in an airport. Hmm. In the security area, there are machines of the latest green technology that meet international standards. Our airport is going to be very safe. We will have six scanning machines to process persons allowing them to go through quickly. Before we get onto the plane, you can enjoy the food at a signature restaurant overlooking the pitots. There are duty-free shopping and lots of seating area at the boarding gates. Now you can board the aircraft using the Convenience Air Conditioned Jet Bridge. Our new Uranora International Airport will include improvements to the airside, terminal building, and road network systems. When the plane parks on the new Arpon, you will access the terminal through the jet bridges. In the terminal, you will go down to arrivals and through customs and immigration using stairs, escalator, or the elevator. The washrooms will be right around the corner for that quick dash. At immigration, there are more technologies to help with border control. For the small flow of people, there is increased space. A new feature of the new airport will be duty-free shopping upon arrival. The baggage area will feature four carousels. You can get your bags quickly and spend more time in during more of the air. Your fully air-conditioned waiting area has so much room for amazing friends to hug and say hello. Even taxis can meet their guests in the same. You can choose to sit in one of the comfortable lounges or refresh yourself with one of the local beverages. You can take your taxi or ground transportation. Our new airport will have a 30-year-lifes plan for more of an excellent customer experience. It will provide opportunities for many solutions for generations to come. Who knows? Maybe one day I will work at our new international airport and say a saying Lucian hello to the world. At this point in time, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to invite to address you her Excellency Dr. Joyce Lynn Fletcher, who is the Ambassador in the Office of the Prime Minister for a diaspora affairs. Please give her a warm welcome. Many people have said, what is this diaspora thing? People have not heard, they do not know what diaspora is all about and have been wondering and wondering and wondering. So now we're going to tell you and give you a history of diaspora. It's a new and it's an old thing. The diaspora initiative, when they say now that it's a new initiative, it's only new because it is implemented now. But the diaspora journey began in 2008 under the Stevenson King Administration. Dr. June Sumo, who was the then, she was the Ambassador for Caricom and OECS with responsibility for diaspora. You would understand that, of course, a lot of attention was not paid to the diaspora because it was like a stepchild or maybe an adopted child or maybe just a foster child. But they did good work in beginning to meet with the diaspora, engage with the associations, meet with the Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association, USLA, which you'll be hearing a lot about. And because of that, they decided, look, by listening to the diaspora, understanding the concerns of the diaspora, the diaspora saying that we are not just out there and we're not just not doing anything. They're remittances. We are giving back more than just remittances. We own lands, we build houses. Some of us have businesses in St. Lucia, although we live overseas. Some of us are carrying trading going on. You need to listen to us, to the serious contributions that we are making to this country and the government listened. However, they demitted office and the Kenyantini government came in. The best thing about St. Lucia, and that is why Little Island is nothing, we are powerful people. That's why we have two Nobel laureates and I go out there in the Caribbean. I'm so proud of what St. Lucia has done. The Kenyantini government approved the diaspora policy, which says that the diaspora initiative has political support from both political parties. So we have political will when it comes to the diaspora initiative and that alone has given us strength because diaspora is about people who love St. Lucia, who wants to give back, who wants to invest, who wants to come back. It is not about race or religion. It's not about political color or political party. It's about St. Lucia. And so they supported and passed the diaspora policy. However, when they demitted office and the Allen Chastney government came in and this government decided, well, look, it started, it's approved, let us do the thing now. Let's take it to the next step. We are going to implement. And in implementing in January 2018, I was called by the prime minister and asked, are you interested? I heard that you were having a lot of conversation with Dr. Sumer because I had brought Dr. Sumer, Ambassador Laura, the immediate past director statistics and Ambassador Dr. Edward Green, who is now the new vice chancellor in Guyana, who was my boss in Caracum. They had come to Guyana to a monstrat where I was working at the time with an initiative that I had to deal with diaspora. So when he called, I said to him, give me a year to finish and I will come because I love the diaspora initiative and I want to give to it. But I need to finish my contract and here I am. This is how this diaspora business began. So the office was set up in the office of the prime minister, all was set in the diaspora policy. It determined what the ambassador should be, who the ambassador reports to, where the office should be placed. And this is in the diaspora policy, which was an initiative between the Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association and the government, governments of St. Lucia. So here I am, the prime minister and his cabinet kept good faith. They wanted the diaspora to know you matter. They wanted you to know that your contributions are important and therefore we are going to put everything into it. We're going to give the ambassador latitude to run with this and work with you, meet with you, engage with you, find out what you need. Only you, not Carrie Combe, not OECS, not any other job, just ambassador for diaspora only. So I am your servant 110%. SLIA loved it. The resource team loved it. And they came on board. And we have been reaching out to the diaspora. Now it's not only going to visit them and say, well, here we go, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. They're not interested in just talk. They want to see that you put in your money where your mouth is. They want to see policies. They want to see initiative. And of course, what have we done? As soon as I got into office, I began to try to know the diaspora. So I did research for seven months on the diaspora associations. Find out where they were, find out their history. And then I began to build a database in my office and the office is made up of two of us. We began to build this database of the existing associations. We collected information from the consulates. We searched Facebook for solutions, contacted solutions in the diaspora and LinkedIn and other social media. Then we had contact persons who were members. Like I have nine of my siblings in the diaspora in the United Kingdom and the United States. And so we asked people that we know. I have cousins, relatives, and so on. And we said, tell them what's happening and have them send us their email and contact. And this is how we built the database. The diasporic database is built up of associations, groups, and individuals. And now I can't give you an exact figure right now. It's not in my head. I'm too young to remember all those figures. But the diaspora database have blown itself way over into thousands of persons right now living in the diaspora. Notice that the diaspora is bigger than the population of St. Lucia over and over and over again. Then after this research and putting the database together, we had tremendous assistance from what I call my diaspora volunteer staff. And that is the SLIA, especially a lady named Bernie. Bernie happens to be the secretary and I don't care she's given me all kinds of eyes up here. Bernie is the secretary of SLIA as well as the secretary of the Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association. I couldn't believe my good luck. So of course I never let Bernie rest. And then I went to the association. I called them, I dealt with them, met with them and they gave me and helped me and helped me build my database also to disseminate information to the diaspora. We put a pack together and we call it the diaspora entry pack. This pack tells you what policies the government of St. Lucia have in place for the diaspora. What policies as far as customs is concerned, investment Lucia is concerned, expo St. Lucia is concerned. What is happening on the legal aspect, what the office is doing and what we are. What Union of St. Lucia Association and what St. Lucia International Association is doing. We put that in a pack and one little staff member would sit every day and send that to every single diaspora in our database. And as we keep adding to that database continue to send information daily until the diaspora who were saying they don't get any information they ignored, nobody thinks them. Now they are inundated with data. If there are jobs in St. Lucia, if there are consultancies, what's happening, what the government is doing, they get that every single day. And as soon as you join the data, you have a new name. She calls them once she has a contact number speaks with them and then she puts me on to speak with them. The number of telephone calls. Apart from sending the diaspora information and about the investment opportunities and all of that I've told you in St. Lucia, we also tell them about this SSDF initiative. What SSDF has done is that they've signed an MOU with the Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association to open in St. Lucia a thrift shop. And that the diaspora can send things to that shop to be sold cheaply and the money can be used to do things in the society. But apart from that, you know diaspora like to send barrels and ambulances and blood banks and all kinds of things so that the hospitals and the schools, all they have to do is let us know. And all the documents go to this gentleman here and he takes care of it right down to delivery. Now tell me, I mean, you know what you're asking for again? These people have done this. Don't let nobody tell you anything. This is a reality, he's sitting here. I cannot lie about him. You know, and before I get an email from a diaspora and I copy the response to the diaspora, I copy him on it. So I always know whether he responds or whether any of my team member responds. When anybody writes to me about anything whether it's land, whether it's problems at bank so they want to invest, I put the right diaspora team on member copy and then within no joke, less than 24 hours, I have the emails here, people, and I can give them to you and show it to you. They respond. They respond to the diaspora. Quick time. No diaspora cannot say, I don't know what's going on. I, nobody answers me. I have to go round and round and round. That is what that team do. But we are the in between. We channel it to the right place for you. So once you think we work because we work 24 seven, I get calls on my bed at 11 o'clock, one o'clock in the morning because of time zones from diaspora. And I respond because my details are out there in the diaspora. So they can call any of us and they will drag. Anyway, I'm coming back to that because I cannot go ahead of myself. We also ask all the groups and the associations and the individuals to submit their names and persons in the diaspora who have made significant contributions in the country where they are based. And those persons will be recognized with various awards. The Prime Minister's Award, the Governor's Award, this award, the diaspora award. And this will be done in February. The diaspora have responded and they have sent us the names, the nominations. We have something like 35 nominations, I think, Janique, of persons who have done significant contribution in the diaspora. And that's not just persons from associations and old persons who just do law wars and independence. No, and they are very important because they contribute to keeping our culture alive in the diaspora and the tourism, but also the youth in sports and education because we gave them the criteria. And these nominations came in and we will be recognized in the diaspora. Everybody will be recognized, some with certificates and some with the trophies based on the criteria that was sent. There is also a youth, a youth award. Now, just recently, Minister Beros, one of the champions of the diaspora unit, she called us and she said, do you have a nominations, persons in the diaspora who are doing significant, she's have to give me, she was, and she called out two names to me, I tell her, minister, I have more than that. I have the bios and we can send it to you. And in quick time, Ms. Myers sent that back to the minister even if I was going on travel duty and the minister sent me a WhatsApp and she said, boy, y'all, there's something else. And that's what we are doing. So we are telling you now what we, this office is doing. We have in the latter half of this year, we have paid particular attention to the diaspora youth groups. So we have laced with universities and other vehicles where there are some strong youth groups almost in every country. And right now this office have youth groups in the diaspora in almost every country who are involved with us and some of them have written to us and we sent it on to the prime minister. They want to come down to make a presentation to the prime minister. There was the group in Canada that was waiting for the prime minister to come up and address them. Unfortunately, we had to postpone that meeting but the prime minister's promise will happen. And of course we have our diaspora return youth here and let's say like to say I'm not the chair, but then you brought that group together and youth came to me so I have to call you the chair. But that is just to show you that the youth now getting the information they are involved with the diaspora office. We have partnered with the government information service where whenever we have presidents, leaders of those groups or associations, they come in and I must say Miss Davina Lee who heads that unit is fantastic. I mean, every time we call and we say to her, Miss Lee, we have a president here. We have a leader here. We have a youth group here. She puts them on issues and answers where they have an interview and they can speak about what they're doing, what their association or their group is doing. And those videos, they send it to us and we put it on our, and we send it out disseminated to all our diaspora. You do not want to know the feedback that we have had just because of what Miss Lee and her team has been doing. Kudos to you, GIS. Thank you very much. You deserve a round of applause. Now, not only do the diaspora receive that, we also send it to the consulate. So if we miss anybody, the consulates can send out what GIS is doing, okay? And that has tripled our interests since this part of interest in the diaspora since this partnership. We have partnered, of course I told you about what is happening with SSDF and I know for sure that Syncroy has been the last group to come after your partnering and we have a big diaspora group in Syncroy. The minister flooded myself just recently went to visit them and that group, they have two groups and they're very vibrant in Syncroy and they have already worked on this MOU and gone over to support with SSDF. I told you about the resource team and I said I would tell you a little more of them and they are made up of senior executives of those various organizations that directly impact the diaspora and I tell you we owe them a debt of gratitude. I mean, who would believe that those executives, all I did is call them up, speak to them and said, so I sell to them what we were doing and what diasporas asking for and what I needed and I mean, I could not believe it. I mean, I know they say I talk and I can talk a bird to go and swim but they came on board and they met with us in the meeting in the prime minister's office. We had a very long meeting and they are meeting on the 29th. I know it's the next meeting with the diaspora representatives. So this team, don't only meet with me in my office to sit down and talk and to talk together and decide what policies that we can come up with that affects the diaspora based on the concerns of the diaspora but they listen to the diaspora themselves quarterly over Zoom with all those hundreds of diaspora representatives they listen to them via Zoom. We have this meeting, the 29th is the next meeting in the morning on the Friday in the office of the prime minister. The diaspora team will be answering questions directly from the diaspora representatives. This will be an ongoing thing. Now tell me and I hope that they never ask me to tell the prime minister that they'd like a stipend because they've been doing this with just coffee, tea and sandwiches. I hope they continue with nothing but the love that they have for Tinducia and their desire to see that Tinducia becomes better with the assistance of our diaspora. We all know that the donor countries, donor assistance is diminishing our diaspora which is bigger than the population of Tinducia by three or four times. And that is first, second and third generation diaspora and I'll tell you a little about the second and third diaspora. They are even more solution than we hear in Tinducia. I mean, I had to go in there and see that kind of thing and it blew my mind. So I just wanted to tell you that how much that diaspora team is doing that no longer can diaspora say nobody's answering me. There's nothing going on. Nobody's giving me anything. Nobody's answering me. I don't know where to invest. Let me listen up. I don't know who to go to. The banks invest in Luscia. They have young people like you who are willing to sit with you, listen, encourage you and help you. Exposed in Luscia have the same thing. You go to these people and talk to them and they will tell you what they want. Just tell me you want to talk to them and I send it to them and they respond and they have been responding to many people. We are no longer in the age where there is no information. You have an office that responds in quick time. You have a team, you have SLIA, you have USLOA, you have all that information given to you. There is no reason that you can see. I don't know where to go or say that I don't know what the government is doing for the diaspora. We have partnered with the government's central statistical department and I don't know if Mr. Matry is here but he said he would have been. And Mr. Matry and his office have joined and partnered with our office to, you see we started with Mr. St. Catherine but Mr. Matry also bought in and has been working with us and sent his staff to tailor the data collection that it targets the diaspora. Without data, data drives policy and we need data, data on the size of our diaspora. I only got this information from, I get information now from ILO and from IMF and from IOM, International Office of Migration. But with our own central statistical office targeting our diaspora for us, we get the information that we need that we can give to our policy makers as it relates to our diaspora also to give to our diaspora offices. This is what the central statistical department is doing right now for this office. We know for a fact on what is happening, we know where our diaspora is located. We don't have all the diaspora because there are many undocumented diasporas. So what we have done is asked to put in the database that the diaspora only asked, we only asked them for their first name. So Jocelyn, I live in New York and this is my email address if I want to do that. If I don't want to put my email address on the database, I will contact the office of diaspora affairs just to make sure that when I can trust them and know that my information will not be sent to the immigration in the United States, then I put my name in the database. This is only for population, okay? We are now, and as I said, this database that we have spoken to people about, we're trying to create, where diaspora can log in their CVs and they can get information concerning what's happening in there. They can put information about their business. They can put on things about their social activities, deaths, births, anything that concerns the diaspora can be in that diaspora database and everybody in the diaspora can see it. Everybody in St. Lucia, they can target diaspora, say, look, I would like this person, I like the CV. Are you willing to come down to St. Lucia for two years for contract or come back and just stay? You have that opportunity. And this is what we have in the database. On the database, you see all what is the government of St. Lucia is doing and it is done by constituents. So all what's happening in the different constituency groups, it will be in that database so the diaspora sees it. Right now we're doing it manually. My office is sending it to the diaspora manually. Ask them, they're here, even they're in St. Lucia and they own our database. We send the information to them manually and they can tell you right now here that they get it every day from us. As soon as the government drop it, we send it to them. So the diaspora cannot say they don't know what is happening for them or what is happening in St. Lucia. The opportunity that this diaspora wanted, return diaspora wanted just like the others get is to be able to ask questions, to be able to target and ask. It's not only having all this information but they cannot ask questions like the others have been having to be able to ask me questions or the prime minister or the minister about what they have. The diaspora office also works, as I said, very long hours, 24 hours, seven days a week we work because of the geographic location of the diaspora and the time zones. So because of that, we meet with the executive of the Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association. I meet with them monthly via Zoom. I meet with the representatives and that's the hundreds of representatives. The president will send out the link. He and Bernie will send out the link to them and Bernie is here, she can tell you about that. And they come on board and I think just about, how many hours ago, about three hours ago, we had a meeting and we speak with them and in Saturdays, those people want to have their meetings with me like I don't have a life. And so we speak with them about everything concerning them via Zoom. I love my diasporas, I'll do anything for them. So don't worry if I give them stick, okay? So even the president was Mr. Oskadas, he comes down to St. Lucia very often to meet with the prime minister and myself so that he can get information and present to his diaspora representatives and his executives. Again, I said to you, we work closely with the St. Lucia International Association and for their assistance, what they're doing and the fact that they're here to assist anybody who wants to return to St. Lucia thinking of returning, contact our office or the information we have for you on the St. Lucia International Association. I have not heard anybody being let down when they contacted them. They are a tremendous supportive group. We also send periodic reports on the diaspora office activities to the prime minister. The minister of external affairs was very, very involved in what's happening. She wants to know, she always calls she and minister Berrows, but we don't send minister Berrows the reports but minister Berrows goes about and she pulls her diaspora and she calls our office frequently when it comes to her diaspora just like the minister of external affairs was very supportive. The cabinet secretary also gets our report. So every time I come from a diaspora town hall meeting overseas, I write a report and I send it to the cabinet secretary copy to the, to the prime minister copy to the cabinet secretary and the minister of external affairs. So then they are up to date with what is happening in the diaspora. To date I have gone to visit six countries. I can't do all of it in just one year. I've only been here one year. And we will do the less, but we did the major and bigger associations. Cayenne was our last, which is a tremendous population. They are asking for the ministers to come up to meet with them. From that one meeting we found about, invest, you're gonna smile because we got about seven investors. So you're gonna smile. They're coming down for you the first is in December on the 27th. So you're going to smile. I've been giving you trickling 1111 here. The banks they're coming to you as well. So look out, export. Any new initiative being implemented takes unrelenting focus. It takes determination. It takes sacrifice and commitment. I believe in it. I enjoy doing it. I wanted to do it. I am one of them. I was in the diaspora for a number of years. My sons, I see them here. Young men, they were, they don't know St. Lucia, but they kept convincing they return in diaspora. And they are the ones who really decided, mommy, you coming back. So I'm here. And I know the needs of the diaspora. I understand it. I was one of them. And I am pleased to see that hard work has reaped or rather is beginning to reap the rewards. Miss Myers, who's my assistant, Jeanique Myers, her name is now as core gates in people's house. That's how well known she is in the diaspora. She calls them, everybody. So whenever I go out there, they say, you didn't bring Miss Myers with you. I want to see Miss Myers. They come to St. Lucia and boy do they come. And when they come, they ask the front desk for Miss Myers. They all want to know who's this Miss Myers and keeps calling them all the time. The diaspora office, my dears, are made of two persons with this extended team. Without them, just two of us could never have done what we have achieved with the diaspora today. It was time that we told St. Lucia and you, the returning to St. Lucia, you know what the diaspora office have been doing. You've been working with us. But we wanted St. Lucia to know this is where we are. This is what is happening. These are the hard-working people who give to the diaspora. The diaspora matters. They can change and shift the social and economic fabric of this country. We need to embrace them and understand the contribution that they're making, which is more than just remittances. It is the houses they have. And look at those beating houses you see around the place and you see them empty. The diaspora built them. And when they built them, they used the people in St. Lucia. They bought the materials in St. Lucia. So they have been shifting. Some of them have opened housing developments and they have businesses and they're not here, but they are doing and it's about time. We in St. Lucia as a whole embrace our diaspora to help us show them that they matter just like the diaspora group has done, just like SLIA who themselves are returning diaspora. It is time we in St. Lucia open up, embrace our diaspora. The government of St. Lucia have shown to the diaspora that you matter because here I am, here is my office, here is what's happening. It is because the government says you matter and we recognize and we welcome and you value your contribution. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I hope everybody got a little booklet that was given to you upon entrance here this evening and it is called Building a New St. Lucia. Does everyone have a copy? Did you take a copy? It is a very informative booklet and it speaks to the journey of building a new St. Lucia from 2016 into some of the projects that the government of St. Lucia has embarked in building a new St. Lucia and I'm certainly sure that persons who left St. Lucia a few years ago, maybe about five, 10 years ago and who came back maybe sometime this year, you will see that there is definitely a lot happening in St. Lucia. You can see that St. Lucia is changing and changing for a better, I might add. One of the changes that you can see perhaps as you enter into the city on a morning is our market vendors who are all along Jeremy Street and I come up to castries, I'm from Viewport so I come up to castries very early in the morning and I can tell you at 5.36 o'clock it is an amazing sight to enter into the city and to see all the vendors with all the fruits and vegetables along the street. It's just really beautiful but one of the reasons that they are there is that the government of St. Lucia has undertaken a market redevelopment project. Ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome the acting Prime Minister Honorable Guy Joseph as he makes his way up to the podium. As I was saying, we are making life comfortable for everyone in St. Lucia and that is also inclusive of our market vendor. So we have begun and I think the project is complete, the market redevelopment project and so very soon our vendors will be returning to a refurbished market. New spaces being created, tiles, new toilet facilities. It is wider and it makes it more comfortable not only for the vendors but for us St. Lucia as we go into the market and to do our shopping. So this is one of the projects of building a new St. Lucia. On the education, the government of St. Lucia am pleased to announce in the last at least two financial years, we have spent $10 million each year on the refurbishment of our various secondary and primary schools in St. Lucia. Most of the schools were in a dilapidated conditions after years and years of neglect and they still have a long way to go because I'm sure you would have heard of some of the concerns of some of the schools that is still not corrected but it is part of the ongoing project of the refurbishment of our schools in St. Lucia and the Ministry of Education is also pleased to announce that starting in January of next year they will be embarking on an IT program where students of form three will be given tablets and on those tablets there will be a download of all the textbooks that they will be using for the classrooms which is an interactive text. So this is something that will be introduced to form three students in January of this year. On our healthcare, I'm sure you've heard a lot about healthcare and those of you who probably leave the broad can share your experiences. It is a challenge everywhere you go around the world. Healthcare is certainly a challenge, the cost of healthcare and access to quality affordable healthcare as well. But the government of St. Lucia is committed to ensuring that there is access to quality affordable healthcare and so in that regard we are pleased to let you know that construction continues on the new wing of the St. Jude's Hospital in the south and it is anticipated that we will be opening that hospital as soon as possible. But I also want to let you know that in spite of the fact that the construction is ongoing, the government of St. Lucia have spent millions of dollars in renovation works and making it as comfortable as possible at the George Orlam Stadium where the hospital currently is being housed. They've spent money on the sewage system, they spent money on electricals, on air conditioning and just trying, I think we've purchased a new X-ray machine as well, just trying to make life a bit more comfortable for the doctors, nurses and patients who are housed in the south. We're continuing our progression to the OKEU Hospital, the transitioning from the Victoria Hospital. We've had a few various aspects of the hospital which is currently at OKEU and that progress continues in anticipation that at least by mid next year we will have a full transition from Victoria Hospital to the O&OKEU Hospital. On the infrastructure where our flagship projects, of course we spoke about the Huranora International Redevelopment Project and I'm also pleased to announce that the government, some of you would have seen it, has started spending, we're spending over 40 million US dollars on road rehabilitation projects throughout the island. We've started construction of roads in Swazel, Sultibus. We've started a few roads in the Grozile area and we will continue to construct and rehabilitate roads throughout the island, including Ancelare Canaries, Castry South in the Viewfort area. So commuters can soon get a little bit of a relief as we continue to construct and to rehabilitate roads in and around St. Lucia. On the tourism, I'm pleased to announce that our tourism numbers continues to grow month by month for week by week. Visitors continue to find St. Lucia attractive, the place to visit, the place to spend time and the place to spend their money. Our cruise ship, Consector continues to grow. I'm also pleased to announce that we are working with Carnival Cruise Line and MSC in trying to construct a cruise port for home porting in the south of St. Lucia. I think a lot of us think that Castry is a little bit saturated with all the cruise ship coming up to Castry's. So it's time people like myself who are in the south get an opportunity to experience the tourists arriving in the south, arriving in Viewfort and perhaps taking the route down to Souffre. Everything is not concentrated or shouldn't be concentrated in the city. And so I'm pleased to note that the government is working with sign and MOU with those cruise ship lines and we're hoping that very soon we can confirm that we will be constructing those cruise ports in the south. Under agriculture, we have started our project of trying to be self-sufficient in at least six crops. We believe that if we concentrate on some of these major crops and our farmers, we can be self-sufficient in those areas and that will create more employment for our farmers and it will also ensure that as St. Lucia's we continue to eat fresh fruits and vegetables daily instead of some of the imported fresh fruits and vegetables that we are getting. So that project is underway with assistance from the Taiwanese government and also we continue to increase our banana production and looking for ways to ensure that we can export as much of the bananas that we produce as possible. Under justice and security, we continue to make our country safe. We have instituted our CCTV cameras quite a few places on the island and I know we are currently negotiating for more CCTV cameras. The commission of police is here so I feel very safe commissioner that you are here. We have made available to the police new bikes and new vehicles in trying to assist them. I know we've also added at least more than 40 new special constables to help patrol the streets of St. Lucia in trying to make it safe and as safe as possible. What we would like to encourage St. Lucia who are here and also listening to me that we need to play our part. If it's one thing I hear the police continue to cry out for is for St. Lucia's and us to continue to support the police when we see crimes being committed, reported and let us play our part in being vigilant and ensuring that we do all that is within our power to secure our homes and our facilities and not leave everything up to the police as well. So we need to play our part. It's a collaboration between us and the police and we need to work together. In terms of sports, we have begun construction of our sporting facilities to expand and to ensure that our young people have as much playground and playing facilities as possible throughout the island. I'm pleased to report that the facility in Souffre we are building a mini stadium with a track around it and construction has also begun on the cricket grounds as well in Souffre and so a lot of the sporting activities will not the regional and international will not be concentrated only up in both issues but we're hoping that we can now have some of that happening in Souffre and when we begin in the south you can have some of those activities happening in the south as well but these are some of the works that has been executed by the government of St. Lucia in ensuring that we continue to build and to develop St. Lucia to the best of our ability. So ladies and gentlemen, I think you need to give the government of St. Lucia a resounding round of applause for their continued hard work as they continue to build a new St. Lucia. Now ladies and gentlemen, I know you probably did not anticipate to be here too long so without any further ado I would like to welcome the acting Prime Minister Honorable Guy Joseph as he addresses you and afterwards we have the microphone set up you will be opening the floor for any questions or clarifications that you may have to either Ambassador Fletcher or Minister Joseph. Thank you very much and let's welcome Honorable Guy Joseph. Thank you very much, a very pleasant good evening to everyone. My apologies for joining you so late for the meeting but as you know today is my church day so I'm coming straight from church to this meeting here tonight. I am here because I think it is important that we understand where we need to go as a country and also that there be some appreciation of where St. Lucia is today because for some reason there is the perception that we give as politicians that when we come into office by some wave of a magic wand that you can fix everything in a country but we know that it does not work like that. While there are plans, there are programs there's a manifesto that outlines the vision of a government for a country. You never really know the true state of the country until you begin to handle the affairs and see what you have inherited. I know that as a government we have not done a good job in explaining to people what we inherited as a government. Nevertheless, we did not want to come across as looking for excuses for what needed to be done but let's look at some very basic things that needs to happen. The country's debt to GDP ratio, what is said by the international community is the prudential limit is supposed to be 60% and if that means 60 cents out of every dollar you earn to cover the debt and the other 40 cents to run the affairs of the day-to-day runnings of a country. What we see today is a debt that is accumulating while the debt is accumulating at a faster rate or our expenditure is accumulating much faster than the revenue or the income of the country and anybody who runs a business in St. Lucia would understand that this is a recipe that leads to bankruptcy or closure of a business. Country is no different and we can take example from our sister island in Barbados and what has happened when you run a debt to GDP ratio of over 120%. Now, as St. Lucia, when this government came into office one of the things we said is that we must double the GDP of this country. The output of St. Lucia is too low. We are not producing as much as we ought to. Our level of productivity is beyond what we are able to do up our potential. So if we continue to grow this economy at one, two and three percent, it means that we will always run a deficit government. You will always be borrowing to meet your day-to-day operational cost. Eventually, that's untenable. You cannot sustain that situation indefinitely. The ECCB has indicated it. So it's not just our declaration as a government that less than five and six percent growth in the economy. In other words, if we have five to six percent growth, we would just be staying afloat. Just with our nose above water being able to breathe. Nobody wants to live like that. That means that the country would be living hand to mouth and the moment one thing goes wrong, you go under. That is the reality of what we have inherited. So when the Prime Minister comes and the Prime Minister says, we need to do things differently because our formulas have not been working. What we are doing in the past is not bringing us the desired results that we are looking for. So there must be a new approach towards development. There must be an approach that is going to put St. Lucia on par with remaining sustainable. Every day, we cannot be going to other countries cap in hand, begging to bail us out of the situations that we are in. After 40 years of independence, what is expected of us as a nation? What is the level of productivity that we would expect? And we have the challenges every day. Our people have shown that they have the capacity, but the linkages between the public sector and the private sector, we are not on par. So the private sector is moving in one direction while the public sector is lagging behind. That's the reality. Most of us don't want to go to government offices to transact any business because the quality of service and output you get there is not commensurate with what is expected of the output of the country. And so when we say we are going to hold everybody accountable, people think that we are criticizing persons. But you see, as long as St. Lucia remains a country that will blame the 17 elected politicians for our state, then we are going to continue to suffer the consequences. The government debt or wage bill is in the region of $450 million a year. So let's put that in perspective. If a country of 170,000 people would be spending a wage bill, and don't misunderstand me, we are not overpaying anybody in this country. I think more people are underpaid than people are overpaid. Our police officers, with what they have to put on the line, I think they are underpaid. Our nurses, our firemen who did such a wonderful job right next to the city hall with the recent fire that we had there. When we look at the challenges that we are faced with, we are not saying that we are overpaying, but what we are saying is if we are spending that amount of money, we expect a certain output. How do we measure what is expected how do we measure what is happening in government? What are the benchmarks that we use to make a determination? So if there's a pothole on a road that should have been addressed, who do we criticize? The minister of infrastructure. Are there not engineers? Are there not technicians? Are there not supervisors? Who are we going to hold responsible when if you blame just the politicians, whether it be this government or the other government or any government, what would happen is that if they don't like you or they don't support your government and they know you're going to take the blame, even if they have the capacity and the means to do the work, they would delay in doing it because after all, a politician will get blamed for it. That is why the approach of this government is saying, look here, everybody must measure up to what is required. How are we going to grow this economy? What is it that is required of us in order to be successful as a country? Every approach taken by this government is met with a lot of opposition. And I'm not talking about opposition from the opposition parliamentarians because that's their job. Our democratic system pays them to do that, to oppose, but the reality is, let me give you some examples. When we came into government, there were two dolphin parks approved. By the previous government. Nobody said anything. As soon as this government said, we are going to establish a dolphin park, all hell broke loose. Now, if you don't want me to speak the truth to you, I don't know any other way to do it. So I have to tell it to you as it is. The lands in Mikud where the hotel was supposed to go on had been there sold more than 30 years ago for that purpose. We never heard there are any artifacts, anything that was necessitating any intervention by any group. All of a sudden new buyers come in, bought the property, put their drawings ready to start the construction. They are told you cannot proceed with construction because that is what is happening. But at the same time, the country must strike the right balance between development and sustainability of the environment. What is our situation today? Global warming, in the last 20 years we've had at least four, one in a hundred years stop. I don't know, let me break that down so you understand. There are certain weather events that would, science says that would happen once in a hundred years. In the last 20 years, we've had about three or four of them. Which means that global warming is real, contrary to what some people may want to say, that global warming is not real. We have to build for resilience. That is a requirement. You cannot continue to build in the same manner. So in building for resilience, a building that would cost $20,000 may now cost you $35,000. Just to be able to meet the basic benchmarks to build for resilience. While this building costs you more, it does not result in a greater level of productivity or neither does it allow you more space to maneuver. So what does that mean? Our cost of doing business is going up. So this government came in and made some deliberate attempts. When we said five to stay alive, what did we mean? We didn't mean that the five decisions that we took would fix the economy and have St. Lucia flowing with milk and honey. That's not the promised land yet. But we are working towards that. And so we knew that you needed to do some basic things to bring some measure of relief to the country. And I can say this without fear of criticism. We got a hard time from the IMF and the World Bank to reduce taxes in St. Lucia. They gave us a very, very tough time. But I can tell you, as we speak now, St. Lucia is applauded by the same agencies because the decisions made by the government has borne fruit. And when the IMF report comes on St. Lucia, you will be able to judge for yourself. So when did we end up? We said there are so many people who cannot go to the hospital even when they are sick because they are owe in a bill. So what the government did was there was $14 million worth of money owed to the Victoria Hospital and St. Jude. The government wrote off that amount because we subsidized the hospital. And then there was an increase in the registration fees for vehicles. We reduced that increase by 50%, not the overall cost, and we've been explaining that, but people choose to say it otherwise. The amount that it was increased by was reduced by 50%. That was to bring relief. When we saw the number of children who could not make it to school because their parents could not find $5 or $10 every day for them to go to school. And you would recall that it was this government that reintroduced the school transport system when we came back into government in 2006 because it had been stopped previously. What was the intention? The intention was to see that as many kids could make it to school as possible. So we increased that. Then going to school, getting to school is one thing, but when a parent does not have enough to give a child a bread on a morning to eat, and that child goes to school on a hungry belly, their ability to focus and function effectively is impaired. And so we beefed up the school feeding program and then to give a boost to the business sector because some people make it look like for if the business sector is successful that that's a crime, that people are not supposed to be successful in this country. We found the middle class and the business sector. We can as well shut down this country because the bulk of the money owned by the government or earned by the government come through the taxes of these individuals who helped to sustain the economy of the country. So what did we do? We said we were going to reduce the VAT. We reduced VAT by two and a half percent and we were heavily criticized because they said we were giving up $54 million. Well, the fact of the matter is as we speak today, less than two years after we reduced the VAT, we were back to collecting the same amount of revenue that we were collecting at 12 and a half percent. We are collecting more revenue than we did at 15 percent. Now that's basic economics. Because if you stifled the economy by overtaxing the people, then people would resist investing. So while we may not have seen a corresponding reduction in the prices of commodities, but what we have seen is an increase in economic activity because the reprieve given to the business sector have encouraged them to invest more, employ more persons and so we have seen a reduction in unemployment and an increase in consumption which results in greater returns to the businesses and to the government. So we have been very strategic as a government in our approach. We cannot be extreme because when you find a bad situation, you have to manage it gradually. You cannot make drastic decisions because if you make drastic decisions to fix the problem, then you are affecting other areas. Crime remains an issue of concern for all of us but I always applaud our policemen and I will say this tonight. We have to decide in this country on whose side we are, whether we are on the side of the police or whether we are on the side of the criminals. It is time that we draw the lines. Do I always agree with what every policeman does? No. And I'm sure not even the commissioner agrees with everything that some of the officers do but we cannot categorize all of our police officers as if all of them are bad when these are the same people we expect to protect us every day. And so we must take the right approach towards crime fighting in this country and crime is very sophisticated now. When the criminals can say we have better weapons than the police officers because there have been lack of proper investment in the police in the past, how do we expect that we can draw the lines and families and parents? We have to begin to take a measure of responsibility for the decay of our society. It cannot be just the government and the police. There is a breakdown of family values in this country and we have to go back to the basics if we are going to bring St. Lucia to where it needs to be. And so what we need to understand it's a collaborated effort. All of us coming together. And I know as returning nationals a lot of you would be very concerned. I think healthcare is the greatest concern and security for any returning national to St. Lucia especially if you come from one of the first world countries because there is a certain guarantee that you have when you are in a first world country. I have no fear in saying we are not there yet but we aspire to be there. And so when the prime minister stood up and said one of these days we have to bring our country to a level where you would not need a visa to go to the US where people criticize him but you have to dream big. You have to have a vision for your country because where we have been it's not paying off. No St. Lucia should be denied a visa to go to the US if we bring this country up to the standard of living that we think we can attain. So for security we've made some investments but that's not enough yet. We still have a long way to go. There must be change in laws. Some of the laws on the books, the commissioner can tell you some of them have been pre-independence. Some of the fines that are there it's even pointless to even arrest somebody and take them in for it you don't accomplish anything. But you have to do all of that in the midst of running the affairs of the country at the same time. So what we have seen is a measure of confidence in St. Lucia. They are growing sectors. If it was about politics we have a lot to boast about but we know that we are far from achieving what we have set out to achieve for St. Lucia. The standard set by this government we have not attained them but we are on the path to be able to do so. So when we came in the forensic lab was closed there were no police patrol boats the radar systems were down our police force was demoralized and to one extent they are still demoralized because we have not been able to bring closure to the impacts and the damage that it has done to our country as to how we found ourselves there that is for another discussion but we have to face our reality and our reality is there are problems that needs to be addressed. So the government we have been debating about OKEU and moving into OKEU we have not changed any laws pertaining to OKEU what we inherited the Millennium Heights Act was passed by the previous government nobody said anything I was in opposition I asked what was going to happen to the nurses I asked the same questions that I am asking now nobody was concerned all of a sudden people are aware that there is a problem for you to open the hospital tell them show you the study that was done by the University of the West Indies when they are talking and it shows that we needed to find and that we needed to find an additional 50 to 70 million to add to the existing budget of the Ministry of Health now think of that you are already running a deficit budget you need to find another 50 to 60 million dollars to run the new hospital and these are preliminary estimates you don't know when you go in there how it is going to work out so if we say there must be proper planning proper organizing and we took a phased approach because you cannot just go there a hospital is not a building a hospital is the services and if you just if you just transfer what is at VH to OKEU you move into a new building that does not mean that you have changed the quality output of what you are given so there must be proper preparation and I challenge anybody to show me what preparation was made for moving into OKEU and the last point I will touch on so the government has gone into an arrangement with a company who operates hospitals not to come and run our hospital not to come and own our hospital but to facilitate the transition somebody who has the experience to help us in transitioning from VH to OKEU and to help us through the system for the first year or two years after which everything so all there is consultants but the hospital would be run by our local people in St. Lucia and St. Jude is going to be my last point that I touch on lots of discussions lots of criticism every day we investigate St. Jude we see more and more the disaster that happened down there and I just said it on a program in focus during this week when we were breaking down one of the walls you know what we found we found a hot water line not insulated together with about 20 electrical lines together so you cannot tell which one is the water line and which one is the conduit for the electrical line now basic common sense would tell anybody for a hospital that was destroyed by fire to have your hot water line which is going to generate a certain amount of heat when the hot water goes through there together with the electrical lines and we have the photos we have all the evidence to show what we are seeing then we go to the roof of the building and what they did was they put a 2x4 in the wall and they cast the two sides of the 2x4 and they saw in beam no steel and they nailed the rafters straight into the 2x4 that is just sitting inside the concrete with some nails holding the 2x4 in place between the concrete but everybody tells me this government finished St. Jude and send the people there and 10 years down the road the building collapsed fire more people died you know who you would want to put in prison who finished the hospital that is who we would want to hold accountable for it because you know what you tell me that's what you're always elected for we elected you all to fix the problem so if there's a problem you should have fixed it not come and tell us well we were under pressure and we had to do that and so today we are building a proper hospital contrary to what you are saying we have DCA approval nothing that was done previously there was no DCA approval and I say to people if you want to do things properly it comes at a cost the cost may not only be money but time and one of the greatest costs to us for fixing or for building St. Jude properly is the cost of time not the money and so I assure you any 10 years down the road and the hospital is being built for seismic resistance that is for earthquake and it is being built hurricane resistance because we are putting a concrete roof we are not putting galvanized on the roof so it is a building that is supposed to endure the worst weather conditions that we can expect because we cannot be asking the rest of the world to help us with resilience but when it comes to us we are doing our things haphazard I can spend the whole night and tell you things but I know you have your own questions and concerns I want to give you the assurance our building of a new St. Lucia is not just physical structures but systems as of January 3rd you will be able to apply for your driver's license online and from your living room you will be able to pay for your driver's license and if you want it mailed to you we will mail it to your home for you and for all St. Lucia's living abroad who want to renew their driver's license they can't pay for it from overseas wherever they are and they will be able to get the license mailed to them because we are going into DigiGog putting more services online for those of you who have problems with DCA with health approval with transport and all of that all of these services by the middle of next year will be online the first phase of it is the licensing part which is going to happen on the 3rd of January and my police officers every ticket that is issued we want you to give us the record because alongside the person's license will be the tickets that they have been issued so when you come to pay your license it will flag that you have five tickets that you have not paid and unless you pay it you cannot renew your driver's license and I'm happy I'm addressing our returning nationals tonight and the diaspora who is following us because you know how this works in the first world countries so if your vehicle license is not paid then your driver's license it shows that your vehicle was on the road and you have not paid then you would not be able to renew your driver's license and it's going to send a signal straight back to the police to say that person's license is due and they have not paid it so rest assured if you are on the road you will be picked up because we have to begin maintaining law and order in the little things so that we can control the bigger ones I give you the assurance the government is working to make St. Lucia a better and a safer place for all of us I thank you Thank you very much Honourable Minister I'm sure he ended on a high note with that driver's license issue it's something that every single driver in St. Lucia has complained about I could say that with no fear right every single person including myself who needs to renew your driver's license it's a headache so Honourable Minister thank you very much St. Lucia hopefully as the minister indicated by half way next year we should be getting online our passports our land registry both certificates and so forth most of these things we do anything phases so that you can go online and you can get access to those information at this point in time ladies and gentlemen we have a microphone to the back is it on microphone to the back and if you have any questions or concerns that you wish to address to either her Excellency or Minister Joseph or any question in general that you would like to have answered we are now opening the floor for your questions, concerns or comments and if you do want to comment the meeting you can also do so I want to say good night to Minister of Government whoever is here Minister I do not know what you mean but you spoke about the police and the nurses and other people they are on the pill in my country but most importantly the thing that you don't look at is the little man who voted for the government of this country and we are not looking about them you cannot tell me that or may soon or join on those guys are getting $110 a fortnight a lab away listen to me, I am telling it to you and I am there and I am going to tell you that it is happening right now as I am speaking on Monday when you see people go to work those things are happening a lab away I forgot it a lab is getting $60 a fortnight when we have a little girl at Julian's Julian's are getting $600 a fortnight I can show you I can bring you in those places and we have foreigners right now in this country having people working for them building for them nothing minister of government acting prime minister we need to take care of the little man who voted for the for the government in this country we need to take care of those people they are not getting anything we need to speak on the behalf of those people nothing is happening for us in this country I can tell you that thank you very much thank you very much what I would like to do perhaps is after the meeting have an engagement with you because it is very concerning if you see people making people on the fortnight so perhaps what I would do after the meeting is have a one on one with you to seek clarification in some of the issues that you have raised thank you very much anybody else I want to correct myself I said $60 yes but $60 which is wrong sorry I said $60 sometimes we need to yes yes yes but it is $60 which is wrong and I am a little girl getting that at JQ $600 a fortnight and a laborer getting $600 a fortnight that is a lot of nonsense we can still speak about it thank you Mr. Joseph I would just like to ask a question I am sidetracking a bit the point the gentleman was trying to make I think you touched on it is the divide between the public and the private sector they need to be closer in line I don't know how you are going to fix that but it is not my responsibility my situation is I have returned from England my wife and I we live here part of the discussion that was spoken about was that those of us were returning residents we are coming to open businesses and so forth but in a way of speaking I have worked my socks this is my expression and I don't have the inclination nor the desire to open the business here I partly owned a small bus company where I bought shares in it and I drove I drove the bus I drove double-decker buses in England I have held that license since 1998 now me as a returning resident applying for a solution driver's license the most I could be offered is a cars driving license and you would appreciate the road conditions that we have living in canneries I could be driving cars up to cars every day on bumpy roads so I have got to pick up now at a minute I am driving a pick up illegally I have held the British driver's license since 1987 as you would appreciate the British system has had the most rigorous driving assessment I don't understand how I have proof to those people at your transport department that I have been driving the bus since 1998 and for them to be issuing me just a cars license I just don't understand okay so I don't know what you applied for I can tell you I applied for because I drive a pick up a pick up truck and I stress to the people that I live in canneries if I go to commute every day the road condition is so bad that although I have got a car as well but I don't really want to use the car for safety I have got kids and so forth all I can say to you is that sounds unusual because generally there is a transition from people who have an international license or license from another country where they are allowed to drive vehicles you are talking about the endorsement part of it and so because of our regulations or what the law requires all you are required to do is go through the basic steps of getting the endorsement so I don't think you should have a problem based on your experience to get the endorsement but driving in England does not necessarily mean that you would get an automatic transfer of everything you did there in St. Lucia without going through the system of being able to just go through the process of endorsement I can look into the matter further I can speak or I can direct you to go to the chief transport officer because that matter can be rectified based on your experience I am talking about the standards the standards of driving Europe and the standards of driving here because like I tried to say I am not an organization to even open the business there it's not like I am not financially able to my wife and I, she is very much inclined but like excuse the expression again about my socks in England I am 54 I am 54 years now I don't want to you know because my you see the quality of time that I have now I never had it in England because my wife left home and the quality of life wasn't there and this was one of the reasons why we moved down here I've got two boys who are at St. Mary's now they are 12 year old, they are twins you know and one of the easiest things I could have done was to have a minibus on the road but like I said is the standard they've told me that I need to have had your license for five years before I can have an endorsement but like I said the standard in England is much greater it's much more more vigorous than here so why is that I can drive the same this is the coach this is the coach in England and you telling me that I can have a pickup here I think you are missing whoever spoke to you because I don't know even for a Saint Lucian who gets the driver's license this year by the following year can drive a pickup so I don't even know why anybody would tell you you have to wait for five years to get an endorsement I'm not doubting what you are saying all I am saying to you is that matter can't be rectified I think it's a situation of misinformation I have asked you to you can go to the chief transport officer I think we are taking note of it and I will raise the matter with them you can see myself or any of the persons after the meeting and we would rectify the problem just one more small point I think there is a degree of age discrimination in Saint Lucia as I said I'm 54 years old in England I could have stayed on work until I'm 70 one of the things that I come across every time I came in the hope of continuing a PhD I've got a master's in international business management and it was my intention but because I feel that I've got so much to offer and because of my age as I understood retirement age is 65 I can't even get a job with government or I'm going to go through certain hoops but my point to you is that we need to assess that age discrimination thing in Saint Lucia because we are living longer now that's what science says as a result we can work longer because I do not need to have a pension at 65 from government I don't know in fairness to you I don't know we have an issue of age discrimination when it comes to driving even the public service driving I'm finished with the driving I said employment with government the driving business I just want to answer you okay there are questions that you know but we can't kill the ministers because we are there to answer your question your diaspora returning may I say to you and that's what we see because this is a meeting of return and returning diaspora so we are here to answer the questions of return and return diaspora there is an office of diaspora phase we invite you and your wife to come to our office on the fifth floor of the prime minister's building our job is to take care of your issues and intercede for you you bring your problems to our office and we will deal with that because what you are asking the minister here these things are just misunderstandings and they can the laws in Saint Lucia change people are now retiring even in the public service at 65 so you know these things are not issues so if you come to us we will explain to you we will make it easy and we will make you understand we can take care of anything that you have a problem with that is what the office is here for come to us and we will answer all your questions we will call the persons for you we will explain we will intercede on your behalf okay thank you perhaps the avenues that we have been through have been right or still this right good evening I've got a I've got a question to not a question but a remark to the Dr. Fletcher and the current deputy prime minister or acting prime minister with regards to the with regards to the acting prime minister's question pertaining to global warming and climate change the Paris Accord what is the government position with respect to the Paris Accord because I believe there is a commitment by the government that by 2030 the current energy use should be 20% through alternative sources am I correct you let me just put that in a nutshell perspective so that we can understand the Caribbean produces less than half percent of the world emission so if you take it down to St. Lucia now even if we go 100% green total renewable energy that is not going to change anything on the world stage and I'm relating to the Paris Accord the arrangements that was made and it's the seeds small island developing states are the ones suffering the consequences of global warming while we are the least contributors to global warming so what was promised not just the Paris Accord of meeting the objective of 20% renewable by 2030 but there was supposed to be that world bank where millions of dollars billions of dollars were supposed to be allocated and for your carbon credits you would be able to trade carbon credits for cash how much of that has materialized today so we moved away from the green economy and the new conversation in the world today is the blue economy and when we sat at the world bank IMF and CDB meetings I said to them it looked like you all are coming up with all fancy phrases to move from one we've not cashed out on the green economy but you've now brought in the blue economy which is the ocean so all I'm saying to you is promises have been made it has not been materialized internationally and that is why some countries are now pulling out of that arrangement but we don't have a choice because even if we go green it does not change our fate our fate remains that we are going to be impacted so going green we are moving in this direction not too long ago we opened the solar farm 3.5 megawatts we look at the number of school buildings and all of the places that is going solar at the same time our maximum output for electricity which is the place that you can go green the more you have the greatest potential to go green our maximum output on a peak day is 65 megawatts so the cost of doing it what it is going to save us is foreign exchange but it is not going to reduce the cost for us initially now you look at the size of St. Lucia go and look at for 3 megawatts of electricity the amount of land space that is occupied and that is why the approach of the government is output per acre every acre of land that is occupied there is supposed to be a land to determine what the output is if we are going to determine our full potential but it is not a government thing it is recognized that solar power is the way to go even currently the United States is determining which way to invest their money in terms of energy so for us in St. Lucia it would make sense for you to advocate the use of solar when it comes to assist the hope owners business owners too so you want me to tell you what our reality is here is our reality we have an agreement with Lucia that takes us to 2046 and then the production of electricity and the return on investment because we have had many offers I am always at loggerheads with them because of the challenges we have had programs projects from waste to energy we have had solar we have had wind we are now working on a geothermal project but an agreement was signed with UNEC many years ago and we have millions of dollars sitting down waiting in the world bank to be cashed out we cannot get rid of the previous agreement with UNEC until we have closed that the world bank is not going to give us and that's grand funding so when governments make decisions to go into certain arrangements it has implications many years ago they went into with UNEC so we are weighing all of our options wind, solar geothermal these are the ones we have looked at liquefied natural gas I can tell you for the transport sector we are already looking at the possibility of conversion of the existing buses to using the liquefied natural gas rather than the fuel which is diesel or gas which has a much greater impact on the economy but these things happen in strides there is no one switch and everything changes Deputy Prime Minister I am not talking about government matter I am talking about what is the government policy with respect to the popular people the home owners, the residents they can have solar systems in the homes what incentives do you or your government have with respect to helping the residents there is duty free for everything Mr. Bola, do you want to say anything on this? So the Senatorship Development Bank we have a facility which is facilitated through the government from the World Bank where we provide a low cost loan for persons to convert to all of these alternative energy uses it is something that we have ads running on the TV we speak about it at all forums where persons can the organizers at the bank who will assist in directing persons who want to have solar panels on their roofs for both water solar panels for the PV systems to have the electrical generation for themselves so the government is facilitating this So what I am hearing here is you are able to offer soft loans to home owners in order for them to have solar systems well that should be the whole island should know about it okay maybe I will just help as well and we are actually taking it to another level we are just about to launch a competition in the schools so every person every child at secondary schools is going to be asked to go home and identify the issues at their homes and we will fund the winner to promote whatever project that they identify which will be looking at alternative energy and even if they have to make themselves more resilient because it is all about vulnerability as well very good very good Dr. Fetchum I believe you have something going here earlier you spoke of how there are more solutions in the diaspora at home and you are quite right and the office here are running if it is run properly and well it might eventually become a ministry for the government because you have the potential to bring in people like me and many others to come back home and do business so if this is run well and I sense a passion in your presentation and it's very good so keep it on and I believe we need to be given some sort of more incentives especially the business those of us coming back to the business there should be a little bit more incentive because what we are given is too timid it is lukewarm it's not inviting but I must say my engagement with various offices the people the personnel are very helpful they are very good, they want to help but for some reason it's not lavishing so Deputy Prime Minister if you want economic activities acting Prime Minister if you want economic activities business to be thriving you have to let go the entrepreneur let us come in roll the red carpet to us you have worked with us you have come to the office you have been with us and I thank you that you have recognized that there is this passion but as I said my own failing resource team they can answer anything and as you see Mr Bolan answered you come any issue you the diaspora have they are there and why are they there why is this office there the government has laid out the red carpet they welcome we value you we want you and you ask for the incentive here it is, the team is here we are here, we welcome you our dollars my dollars is right here the international investor where is the dollar hello I'm a solution living in the diaspora I'm really heartened and impressed I'm happy to hear some of this information that you have shared with us you know really really pleased I brought a couple of frustrations and they are just tiny but I just thought I would mention them and adding to one of my one of the gentlemen said we have gone in licenses I would like to ask why isn't the temporary three month license still available on the airport because I came in about four weeks ago and this is the second time because I come home every year and I'm actually on my gradual return to live back home but when I came in this year and last year as well and I've come in twice this year I was not able to get the temporary license on the airport so when the tourists come because they are going to hire a car they are allowed to get a license from Avis and the other car rental places on the airport but then for me I've had to go to a petrol station in viewport they didn't have any and then I went to the police station who said to me they didn't have any and I've been going from pillar to post to try to get a three month temporary license that was really really frustrating and I think they should because they used to be you used to be able to get them but why isn't that not available anymore the yeah that's a three month the temporary three month license so are you saying that you're not renting a car but perhaps your family wants a car yeah because I'm solicitor I have contacts so I want to rent a car but then I can't because I have to get that three month license first and it's not it used to be available on the airport and then he said being available when you drive out you know it's just not available at all so you need to go to the petrol station in viewport and then the last two years it's not been you know I went there they told me about the papers run out and this and that and the other and I was not able to get to it do you have any order just before the minister comes I'll just record them yeah just a couple more things I've been hearing a lot of oh yeah before I go on to that in terms of the airport it was impressive and there was a lot of you know I have seen it back in London I've seen loads of footage and stuff about the airport and that's great but I also wanted just to make a small reference to the custom officials I hope in accordance with the new airport we have a new attitude because I see that and you know I'm on lots of Facebook groups in London and not only representing St Lucia but representing you know the other islands and they all talk about you know the attitude of the custom officials when they come in and when I come in too I always see the difference distinct difference between the treatment of nationals as opposed to tourists so they come in and it's not only the fact that they open their suitcases and empty everything out but it's also the fact that the comments that are made even with me sometimes I come in and I go to a British passport but it's born in St Lucia so I come in and then they open my case and say well do you have presents for people and say well my parents live here and they would say oh well is that not a present this is really disheartening and when you're on a long flight and you're stressed and you're looking forward to coming home and seeing loved ones and family you really don't want to be facing that level of stress so in accordance with the new airport I hope there's a new determination a new drive a new attitude towards nationals and tourists and the last thing I want to ask is I know Dr Fletcher spoke a lot about the actual diaspora database I give my details you know does that mean I'll be added to that and I'll be getting in for how do I go about being added to it and getting information I'm not currently I'm not currently well I've just given that is that then I'm on okay alright so all information around concessions coming back all that will be there okay yeah thank you very much yeah thank you so let me see if I can just take your concerns in sequence the issue of the driver's license I know that it's more confined now to the driving schools but not driving schools I mean car rental companies we are hoping that with the new introduction that we are doing that you can make your arrangements online for your license prior to arriving and you may find that because we are going through a transition process now that I was not aware that you could not get it so I'm taking note of that because these things if they are not brought to our attention sometimes you're not aware as the minister that that's actually a problem so we are going to look into it on the issue of the customs we are in discussions and in at an advanced stage of going to border control as opposed to just dealing with just the issue of customs don't feel special all of us go through it so I mean I've had my share and all of us and I really think that we need and I say not just in St. Lucia across the Caribbean I go into the US and this place is a lot easier than going to another Caribbean island and I find that on the carry come and under this and I can well understand why our returning nationals would feel the way that they are feeling but as we indicated earlier it's a work in progress and we are hoping that people gradually would pick up and understand that everybody is not coming to St. Lucia and now it's 50 pounds you have in a suitcase what can you really carry in in a suitcase and sometimes I find what it should be but the customer relations I think is what needs to be addressed I guess when I'm a minister I don't I'm not exposed to the same things that you exposed but I can tell you when I was in opposition it was not nice if I tell you how I used to be searched when I came in but that's the reality of our country and when we appeal to the citizenry and we say to people our approach must be different in St. Lucia we must begin to do things in the proper manner but generally speaking I don't think that our customs office as a bad in and of itself you may come across the occasional person who may give you a tough time at our share but I take on what you have said and we are hoping that with the new facility and the better layout that we are going to have you are going to have more of the scanners in place because our security is going to be beefed up and because of the method of security because what we are also looking at with the new airport is that for example if you traveling first class your business class or first class service should not end when you get off the plane but it should continue way after you you've left there to the point where maybe if you go into a hotel or somewhere that your luggage can even be delivered there to you so we are definitely thinking outside of the normal way of doing things it's not just a facility we are building that is beautiful but we expect that the services would be on par with the facility that we are establishing. I am hoping not only waiting for the facility but almost immediately those of us who are returning home whether we carry American passport Canadian passport which I carry British passport that we are treated equal to the tourists and do not feel as if we are second class citizen. I am very very strong about that because I have been subjected to certain comments certain attitudes that no one should be subjected to that when you are coming home. When I get to Canada they say to me after I show welcome home when I get to St. Lucia they say what have you got to declare that's the difference okay now you have made a lot of points in the talk that is both the diaspora ambassador and yourself I first have to congratulate your government for all the infrastructure building that I see that you are doing you need to be congratulated but healthcare for most of us like people like me is very very important and I am looking towards the day that St. Jude will be open and we in the south can walk in there and get some quality and proper service one of the questions about the St. Jude is earlier on when your government came in I heard report that you were doing a forensic audit in terms of what transpired in St. Jude there was a lot of hoopla but I have not heard anything about the result or whether or not people were held into account for what happened at St. Jude so that's number one number two I think our group very concerned about traffic safety and we are asking what is going to be done to ensure better traffic safety on our roads one of the concerns we have when you have to go and renew your license that's your vehicle license you are supposed to go for an inspection an inspection is supposed to determine I believe whether your vehicle is road worthy okay you go to those establishment and the clerk in the office takes the form that you had before and put check check check check and they don't even look to see the mileage or if your light comes on if your tire is properly inflated and they say $40 or $45 and they give you a piece of paper I would ask that better check be done on how those people who have been given a contract to do vehicle instruction because it has happened to me I went to view fort had an inspection had my license driving back home when I hit a lane how many people know where a lane is when you leave canals before you reach Dairy So Gap that flat area I heard boom one of my tires shattered and if I did not have vehicles I would be dead so that's three the other thing we are concerned is why is it because you are 60 or 65 every three years you have to have a driver's test because right now I will say to you 60 is the new 40 85 is the new 50 and 85 is the new 60 so we have to recognize that though the years are there we have to recognize that the skills are still there the faculties are still there and what is the need of having a driver's test when you have been driving probably 40 or 15 years so this is another area we would like that some attention will be paid to thank you okay so let me see if I can I'll take from the bottom first the last question raised that of the why at that age you need a driving test and I will tell you when that idea came up when that change of legislation came up I was in parliament in opposition and I raised the objection to it in opposition the then prime minister said to me I will be that's referring to himself the first person in the parliament subjected to that so if I don't have a problem with it why should you have a problem with it we cannot go and change laws every day that's it makes us look like we don't know what we are about I was in favor of people who drive public service vehicles who commute the public to have been scrutinized to that level but to be to subject the rest of the population I'm telling you my personal feeling on this what they do for a test is no test at all you just go and I said to them if you want to charge a fee charge a fee but don't subject our elderlies to that type of exposure but it is the law and until we change it it remains that that is the requirement on the issue of the inspection that remains a sore point for us because it is something that is managed more by the insurance council along with the ministry of transport where there are certified garages now there are some garages who do that but there are other garages who put you through the proper test what the concern has been is by right the inspection is supposed to take about 45 minutes if you go through no and it has been an issue of well if you are going to pay me 45 dollars or 40 dollars to do an inspection what do you expect from me because there are issues with this but safety we cannot put a price on safety and that is why we are trying to revise as many of the laws as possible as it pertains to roadwardness of vehicles the issue of safety and what we expect to happen so that we can make our road safer I can tell you this week we are observing with the rest of the world world safety road safety awareness under the theme you are not a carpark but St. Lucia really have too many accidents and 90% of the accidents are pure carelessness not anything that should happen so we are hoping but the government has taken an approach to make the road safer so you would see a lot of areas that did not have these railings and these barriers and road signs and road markings and all of that all of that is taking place today what we need to be able to change is driver behaviour and attitude and that is something that is with the individual we hope that with the new system that we have we will have the demerit point system in place so after you lose a certain amount of points you don't have to go to court for a magistrate you would automatically lose your driver's license and go back to driving school so that you can relearn to drive properly to come back and get a driver's license is that it on the St. Jude matter we did we did not do a forensic audit at first we did a technical audit the technical audit was to make a determination on the structure of the building and whether it met the requirements of a hospital as we speak today all of the findings of both the technical audit and the financial audit is with the office of the attorney general and the lawyers engaged by the government but once it reaches that stage it is beyond the involvement of the minister I cannot give a directive as to what should happen it is based on the findings that they are going to act and from my standpoint I expect action to be taken because there is sufficient from what we saw in the report on the basis that we were building an institution just purely on that without any DCA approval was sufficient ground today I am being criticized for building St. Jude without DCA approval when we have DCA approval but yet still there was no criticism I have not heard any criticism from the same persons for building the monstrosity we have down there and failing the basic requirements of safety the fire test was filled by the present construction that we have for St. Jude not the new one we built in what was there before so I wait on the AG and the other departments of government to guide us at the next stage I did some travelling recently to the Dominican Republic Belize and I made an observation that the tourist project is so cheap like if you go and buy something there or you try to rent a hotel they are almost half the price of inclusion not this is going to be a challenge to the heart of our economy what is St. Prussia doing to answer this challenge because it so happened that these two countries they are the fastest growing tourist island tourist destination in the Caribbean so is the government aware of that are you guys responding to that challenge yes we are high in destination we are not a mass tourism destination we are high in then the second point is that the cost of doing business in St. Lucia is generally higher than these places now so you look at volume you look at the effort you look at the hotel accommodation you look at the cost of labour and while the gentleman raised the issue about the price the same Dominican Republic people who came down to St. Lucia and worked on the Royal Town Hotel a lot of them never return and they are working for half the price that St. Lucia are working for because they are custom in their own country to work for these prices these these are our realities electricity in St. Lucia as an example maybe over 30 cents a kilowatt hour if I take Trinidad as an example four cents a kilowatt hour so for the other gentleman who said that we need to roll out the red carpet and give the incentives that is why the government gives all of the incentives that it gives to that sector to make us attractive because in the other areas we cannot compete so we have to be able to offer something that would make us an attractive destination so we have the beauty we have the landscape we have the friendliness of our people we have all of these going for us what we have to do now is to find ways to reduce in cost and I know in the meeting with the electricity company we are targeting how we can have a reduction the cost of electricity which is one of the greatest outputs or costs for any of the hotels operating there then you look at the cost of water you look at the cost of transportation from the airport to the hotel so that is why we are not focused on these 5000 room hotels but we are into the niche market of honeymooners because when you get in married or you are making up or you don't put a price to that you don't put a price to that for many people it is once in a lifetime event and that is why St. Lucia I know the minister of tourism just indicated to us just during the week once again St. Lucia has captured the crown as the leading honeymoon destination in the world for this year again so we are aware that we have challenges and that is why our approach is we need to at least double the number of hotel rooms that we have if we have more hotel rooms because you have a critical number that will help you to reduce price so we have 4500 hotel rooms if we can get to 7000 hotel rooms what it does is it attracts more people more airlines would come greater competition then the price of the airfares would drop and then you would begin to see the benefits of being able to reduce the cost but we cannot reduce the cost significantly so when even our people criticize us and say oh why are you giving all of these incentives to the hotels that's the only thing we have to offer them to be able to attract them to come into St. Lucia outside of the beauty and what we offer as a country thank you very much go ahead please I will keep mine short my concern has been spoken about earlier but not in the way that I am going to put it I am concerned about the speed limit the driving on the roads of St. Lucia even coming here I had to break three times approaching the hill because the car in the opposite direction was overtaking and I had to break otherwise it would have been a head on collision I am really concerned about how people are overtaking at a bend overtaking on a hill without seeing what's coming in the opposite direction and that's my concern it is very very dangerous and I have been driving over 45 years and I am a fast driver but not on the roads that we have here I think it's unfortunate that the commission of police has left with reference to traffic yes the commission and I have had regular discussions about this thing one of the areas that we are lacking is sufficient patrol vehicles specifically for traffic and we are trying to address this problem because what we have said is nobody should drive between castries and viewfort and not encounter at least two specific patrol vehicles that pertains to traffic and the same should apply for grocery because if it's only one vehicle you have when they see that vehicle they know I'm not seeing another vehicle again but it all boils down to attitude we have to do a lot and people see their driver's license as a right they need to start to see it as a privilege that is given because you cannot endanger people by the way you drive we are concerned about guns and these things but when we look at it between for the last ten years we have had more than 190 road fatalities in St. Lucia a small country like ours and over 1,200 serious injuries to people there is no reason why a country of this size should have this number of road fatalities and it is just because of the attitude that people have when they sit behind the steering wheel of a vehicle we are hoping for better concerted effort not just by the police because the police cannot be everywhere but that we in St. Lucia would begin to change our attitude towards how we drive in St. Lucia to make it safer but through the law we will do what we can one of the things we are doing is driving a vehicle pound so when we find you as you indicated and your vehicle does not meet the road wordiness specifications we do not allow you to drive that vehicle home we call the wrecker and we take the vehicle to the pound and in due course you will pay and do the necessaries because if we can curb the problems in traffic we can reduce the vehicle activity that is taking place in St. Lucia today because it starts small and then it grows so that is the approach we want to take I want to tell you we are not where we want to be yet we are aware of the problems and it is our intention to work until we can solve it so tonight I on behalf of the prime minister who I know he really wanted to be here while I was at the table he called me and he said please convey my regards to the diaspora the returning nationals and the people in general he is very hard pressed he is negotiating with some things with the US government and he was not scheduled to travel this week but because and those of you who followed the news would have seen that they had some meetings with Congress and in terms of what we are doing in St. Lucia and that is why he had to be out of state I trust that the team represented here today have brought some level of satisfaction to the concerns that you have raised and to let you know that we value the diaspora we are moving in parliament to change some of the legislation so that even the second generation can be entitled to the St. Lucia passports and that because sometimes it is limited then we have another one where if the husband is married then the wife gets easy access but if it is the lady then the husband has a difficulty we are moving to change that to put you all on same level so that whether it's a man or a woman who is married outside then they entitled to the same benefits coming back to St. Lucia so I want to assure you that the government is working we value your contribution whether it be in the form of remittances that you have sent to support your family and your loved ones in St. Lucia or whether you are returning national who have come back to reestablish in St. Lucia in whatever form that it is your contribution is appreciated and recognized and we look forward to continuing to work with you to make St. Lucia what we all can be proud of I thank you and God bless before you go I just wanted to correct one thing and I know my diaspora is singing yes we know second generation diaspora can get their passports I know you've been killing the government for the third generation and that is the policy that's being looked at now for third generation so don't start getting the thing and think oh they are not looking at third it is third is being looked at along with the other things the minute to tell you and I want to say to you my lady here I am making a suggestion to the government just like you I like data and statistics the same way I am giving them the statistics to say how many of you returning or how many of you diaspora are invested in St. Lucia so that they can make their policies to benefit you I am also going to tell them to check the statistics about how many road fatalities our road accidents are from the young people or the old people so they can look at the age policy as well okay a pleasant good evening to each and everyone here and especially those that up front I just want to thank I want to express my sincere gratitude especially to ministries and for helping me out by renewing my passport I am proud to be a St. Lucia as well as an American and and it wasn't any problem I had to go through in getting this passport as long as I had the opportunity to reach this woman Mrs. Fletcher and she introduced me to her secretary and she referred me also to her and she said she's going to help me and this woman put her best out to help me get this passport and knowingly that I am a widow just had my husband pass a few months ago and there is a concern that I really want to bring to you even as a widow I have not heard anybody spoken of have been a widow coming from or being a U.S. citizen and also a bronze St. Lucia and knowing that I have returned here and lost my husband five months ago and I'm still waiting to hear from the U.S. Government they're sitting and struggling myself out to survive how can I know that the government cares about that when my deceased husband was very very close to the government of St. Lucia especially Michael Chastney and this man did a lot of work for this island helping Mr. Chastney knowing, building that foundation for St. Lucia because he was a very wise man and Mr. Chastney couldn't do without this man he was his second hand he passed my God he said Alan Chastney, he referred Alan Chastney to me stating that you know he has passed and there is something that must be done and he promised to see me I've never seen him I've never heard him nor a call but I'm wondering if I'm not a born St. Lucia that there's no one who really cares I only saw our representative once I've never heard of him I've never heard from him and I've never seen him since then so I'm asking the question I am I'm not a born St. Lucia someone is or will be concerned or should be concerned about a widow who lost her husband five months ago that was very close to the government who had to work and always willing to work with the government and you know just helping them out of how to do things where to do it and you know with along with the government and you know I just I just want to say well that I don't know what to say again but I know that I had to stand here to really dish it out because I am concerned about what is the government doing about you know widows that has left the U.S. and come and stay in St. Lucia and has lost their loved ones Please accept my sympathies with the passing of the government so what I will do after not to show what channels was used to communicate for a meeting or meet up with the prime minister after the meeting I will come to you and get your contact details and change for so you can speak to the prime minister and also I will pass on your details to an excellency as well and then we can have a dialogue but I am truly sorry and I apologize and I am so sorry about you Thank you Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen you've been a wonderful audience