 amendment have been placed on your desk and to the honourable member from Niko South and behalf of the Parliament I wish you a belated happy birthday. Statements from ministers? Prime Minister? Mr Speaker, before I comment I'd like to do two things. One, to express my sincere condolences on the death of a member of the medical community who died this morning in very suspicious circumstances. Secondly, I'd like to wish all musicians a happy, senseless day. This morning I had the pleasure to listen to the St. Lucia police band and they are at the vintage best and I hope during this year's budget we can do something to improve their situation. They are in dire need of facilities etc. We hope we can assist them during this year's budget. Mr Speaker, the long-standing issue of termination benefits to majestic industries and Lee at 1974 Limited Workers will be settled and I'm reading and I'm reading from the budget address which I delivered on 26 April 2022. Mr Speaker, you may recall about 30 years ago the owners of majestic industries, a government manufacturing operation at busy left St. Lucia owning workers termination payments. My administration will honor this long-standing payment to majestic industries for the issuing of government bonds which have been accepted by the representative of the workers. You may wish to note that this is another commitment made by the former prime minister which remained unsettled and left now for this administration to honor. Mr Speaker, the government has also entered into a similar arrangement with the non-management Lee at workers who were terminated by the closure of the company in 2020. We are currently in discussion to the former management staff including pilots to arrive at an acceptable settlement. Mr Speaker, our decision to settle these outstanding payments is yet another demonstration of our continued commitment to the upliftment of the welfare of the workers of the nation. And Mr Speaker, after discussions with the representatives of the workers and represent the National Workers Union who represent the workers and the non-unionized and unionized workers at Lee at cabinet yesterday endorsed the following. Payment of outstanding termination benefits totaling four million four hundred thirty six thousand five hundred and seventy eight dollars and sixteen cents to ex-employees of Lee at nineteen seventy four limited according to the approvals that the Attorney General's chambers engages the lawyers representing the National Workers Union with regard to the formation of a special purpose vehicle to facilitate payments totaling one million nine and sixty thousand to ex-employees of majestic industries that the Department of Finance facilitates payments for the issuance of solution government bonds that the bonds issued be considered as full and final settlement of termination benefits to the ex-employees of Lee at nineteen seventy four limited and majestic industries limited the Attorney General to ensure that upon receipt of the bonds that the appropriate arrangements are made to indemify the government of solution from any further payments or claims related to by the ex-employees of Lee at nineteen seventy four limited and majestic industries limited that the Attorney General's chambers assess and provide feedback to cabinet with respect to the status of the building belonging to the majestic industries limited situated at busy in the quarter of cashews. Mr. Speaker I'm sure that the workers at majestic industries who for more than twenty years have languished hoping that someday they will be paid have realized now that they have a government that is truly interested in the welfare of people and the welfare of the workers of this country. And Mr. Speaker the situation relating to Lee at is a fundamental principle that we had to be faithful to because Mr. Speaker Lee at has been criticized vehemently Lee at has been put on the Z has been put on the all sorts of criticisms by Mrs. Speaker right now it's easier to go to Barbados or Antigua it is easier to go from army and get to Barbados from army and get to Antigua then it is to go to Antigua directly because of the absence of Lee at. So Mr. Speaker this move by the government is to give confidence to the workers of Lee at that even though they have been attacked and brutalized sometimes due to mistakes that they've made but they've never been appreciated and I want to say clearly Mrs. Speaker that the former prime minister had absolutely no appreciation for the acts absolutely no appreciation for the at Mrs. Speaker whereas it was important for him to subsidize international airline and nothing wrong with us he had to do it for the tourism industry when it came to Lee at he's on record as saying not one cent will the government solution ever ever invest in the at this government Mrs. Speaker we are going to work with the other governments in the OECS and the region and Barbados to ensure that some form of the at gets back up because the region cannot survive without Lee at Mrs. Speaker Lee at is a public good and whereas the former prime minister was always looked for excuses why we could not support the at we are showing that is good fit by showing the workers in the at that we appreciated what they did and that is why we are paying them the tribulation benefits Mrs. Speaker I want to thank the workers of Lee at for their patience but also most importantly the workers at majestic industries because these are single mothers we talk about single mothers at a time but these are single mothers who are unscrupulous investor left them without the termination their severance pay and the termination benefits but this government we are finding the resources to pay these workers truly putting people first and truly put in the work of this and that is why we are going to pay the public servants the backpay Mr. Speaker I also want I want to thank the workers for their patience I want to also want to send the National Workers Union because the National Workers Union were very very patient I must thank them for that Mr. Speaker they are a number of letters that they received Mr. Speaker promising all kind of things the land that will tell belong to the company should be sold proceeds from the sale should be used to compensate the workers a hundred and fifty other former employees are prepared to accept $10,000 each has an extra payment in your severance notice grant vacation entitlements to be enclosure to to this matter that was a letter one of letters of July 16 2020 signed by the former prime minister written to the the National Workers Union July 16 2020 up to today one year later July 2021 nothing Mr. Speaker so I want to thank the workers and the many other letters Mr. Speaker which I will not put in the statement many and I want to thank the Union for their patience Mr. Speaker I want to thank the staff or the Ministry of Labour for working diligently with the workers to ensure that the calculations are directed led by the minister I also want to thank Mr. Speaker and again the Liat workers so Mr. Speaker I'm sure that the Ministry of Finance will make it possible to get the bonds to these workers by Christmas and because of the confidence in this government these bonds will surely be sold as soon as they are received by the workers this bonds are surely going to be sold and the workers will have a good Christmas so coupled with the money that they sell the bonds for the majestic workers and the Liat workers covered in the fact that the civil servants will get a back pay and covered in the fact there's a general upswing economically in the country will have a merry Christmas I thank you Minister for Commerce Thank you Mr. Speaker for the opportunity to make this statement in this honourable house as we observe November as business month Mr. Speaker the observance of November as business month was implemented by your humble servant in 2015 and the Ministry of Commerce has continued this observance ever since albeit in different forms and intensity Mr. Speaker the Ministry of Commerce continues to vigorously pursue its mandate of private sector development recognizing that the current global economic climate and ongoing distortions in international trade have re have up on our business community our focus therefore through our various programs and initiatives place significant emphasis on supporting post COVID-19 recovery of our businesses and more importantly in supporting wider efforts towards building economic resilience in short Mr. Speaker as a small island developing state we recognize that there is need not only for aggressive reaction towards these exogenous shocks that our economy experiences but rather that we must anticipate them and proactively work with our local businesses in mitigating them to this end Mr. Speaker my ministry has embarked on a range of initiatives involving a myriad of domestic regional and international collaborators stakeholders and sponsors these programs at various stages of implementation and with that cumulative output set to become the catalyst for sustained growth of our private sector in this regard Mr. Speaker as our collective efforts in this regard Mr. Speaker and as our collective efforts reach the apex of this calendar year 2022 the ministry of commerce my ministry is proud to once again adopt the month of November as business month in celebration of the achievements the ingenuity and the potential of our private sector as business months dawn on the business community it brought with it great exuberance and a myriad of opportunities for entrepreneurs at all levels of the business cycle as I said earlier the ministry has beheaded these well anticipated month of activities since 2015 and if this is not sufficient evidence of the significance that our ministry and our government places on the evolution of our business ecosystem in St Lucia this year's theme action today impact tomorrow serves as an appeal for strategic action on the part of the business community to take advantage of the programs projects and other initiatives available now as a means of solidifying the enterprise the enterprise's future as you know Mr. Speaker my ministry's main branch is ideally located on the fourth floor of the heraldine rock building on the castries waterfront we are blessed with a majestic and panoramic view of the harbor but we spend most of our time focus more importantly on overseeing the affairs of our business community and that business community comprises an estimated 76 percent of our micro and small medium enterprises as per our last count at a statistics that we anticipate will increase through the upcoming enterprise sensors that is set to get underway in the coming months this anticipated increase in MSME Mr. Speaker is brought about in part by the COVID-19 pandemic which displaced a number of our hardworking citizens why some of these persons have since reverted to full-time employment many have continued to engage in business activities and continue to require this government support therefore Mr. Speaker through business months we have been featuring a plethora of activities that will lend support to this and other groups of St Lucia's productive sector our program of activities include among others the 15th annual St Lucia Taiwan partnership trade show and this is for its 15th year St Lucia and Taiwan collaborated to provide interest trading and investment opportunities to our St Lucia businesses the 15th annual Taiwan St Lucia trade show was held between the second and the fourth of November this year at the Haber Club under the theme forging strong ties through sustainable trade the event featured physically and virtually 45 St Lucia companies and 23 Taiwanese businesses leveraging existing and new opportunities across sectors that included food and beverage ICT services energy efficiency health and beauty automobile parts and accessories creative arts business and consumer services among others a key component of this year's event was the facilitation of business-to-business interaction between St Lucia and Taiwanese companies and the wider St Lucia business community including wholesalers and distributor outlets and other commercial agents the objective of this activity was to develop strategic trading and networking alliances among all stakeholders Mr. Speaker many of our big businesses and exporters got much needed visibility and opened doors through participation in the trade show the current demand for participation far exceeds the available slot and for this reason plans are in progress to expand and ensure maximum participation in the ensuing year secondly the community business forum which was launched in May 2022 continued throughout the month of November and will continue beyond this with the objective of directly engaging with business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs today Mr. Speaker four of these activities have been held between the constituencies of Souffre, Rosillais, Babono and Casteris East and a fifth plan for the constituency of Souza and we are dealing with the opposition and serving them well because they are members they are members of this honourable house but the people in Souzael are solutions so we are serving this coming Sunday we are planning for Souzael and the sixth program is scheduled for Casteris South East in December I mean 18 from these events Mr. Speaker approximately 300 registrants continue to engage with my ministry and other participating agencies including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Tourism, the Department of Economic Affairs, Exports Centrushia, the Centrushia Bureau of Standards and the Centrushia Development Bank to use the story in the Bible this small seed that has been planted is quickly blossoming into a mustard tree that will continue to provide both shade and nourishment to our rural communities Mr. Speaker on November 17th the ministry hosted the MSME Business Banking and Regulatory Compliance Symposium to inform owners of small businesses of the value of business banking, business formalization and regulatory compliance duties MSMEs in Centrushia continue to struggle with a lack of access to capital the root of the issue is that many of our MSMEs operate without having a formal business bank account due to various reasons Mr. Speaker on November the 24th my ministry is going to host a government pre-opement symposium the COVID COVID and current global economic recession have exposed the vulnerability of the private sector individuals and economies falling for a rethinking and redirecting of government expenditure this cries call for strong responses based on solidarity cooperation and national pride in supporting what is truly Centrushia as a government of Centrushia continues to institute policies to address these vulnerabilities help rebuild the economy and strengthen the private sector it remain mindful of its commitment to the principles of fair and balanced trade as a signal signatory to international and regional trade agreements however it is of importance that government take the lead by supporting and directing more of its pending towards domestic goods and services to this end the ministry of commerce in collaboration if other private and public sector organizations will have a symposium aimed at building resilience within the local economy while sensitizing manufacturers and service providers of government procurement policies and procedures in addition to exposing the accounting and finance officers in the public sector to the wide range of local goods and services to encourage them to buy local and to ensure that in doing so our economy grows and our small business sector benefits mrs speaker this symposium will be quickly followed with a crime prevention training workshop for businesses which is stated for november the third year crime is such a worrisome atrocity and it resembles a giant squid with his tentacles meddling in all facets of our society only this morning we heard of the tragic passing of someone so mr speaker no longer is crime just a predominantly social issue crime also impacts the growth of our businesses as well as our economy i note here that increasing crime ratings and crucial has been a recurring concern within the business community as reported by private sector associations and documented in the most recent investment climate assessment survey at this workshop the ministry of commerce will be working with the rules and wish a police force to detach and debilitate these tentacles through topics such as basic crime prevention and personal safety robbery awareness and prevention and lost prevention training mr speaker my ministry believes firmly in the theme action today impact tomorrow and what are some of the other actions that we are taking the ministry small business development center launch the young entrepreneurs in action program designed to empower students and business owners to receive a mutual exchange of knowledge through a student internship program the first one took place in august this year where 40 students in the fourth and fifth form at secondary schools throughout san gusha were assigned to specific places of employment where they gained relevant job training in tandem with career aspirations which proved extremely vital for their development as future entrepreneurs this event was a resounding success and a win-win situation for both the students and the employers who in some instances adopted the ideas of these innovative and creative interns i take this opportunity to find the business owners who partnered with us in that regard mr speaker this was followed by the training of trainers which is yet another milestone at the ministry to ensure that our businesses get adequate training and capacity building this initiative was funded by the government of taiwan and just aim at improving sustainability among our small businesses to date 45 persons have received certificates for the recent participation in the training of trainers workshop and are well equipped to transfer their knowledge and build the capacity of our entrepreneurs mr speaker as a minister with responsibility for cooperatives i will not rest until we are satisfied with the restoration and reform of our cooperative sector so cooperatives are businesses providing specific services to their members and must operate as such i've engaged the fissures and farmers cooperative sub sectors and subsequent to these fact finding forums we have completed the workshop in response to some of the immediate needs identified by the sub sector in summary mr speaker these workshops one effort to build their potential for registration and for better business argument in management of their cooperatives conversations have been held in the credit union sub sector to collaborate on some other initiatives to facilitate our efforts at sustaining our cooperative sub sector through the development of a visionary performance improvement plan a plan which will aim to reform restore and rebuild our cooperative sub sector our consultation will have no bounds as we set to collaborate on efforts to strengthen our economy one sub sector at a time broadly the plan looks at increasing training and better business argument greater knowledge of the cooperative business model increased membership among the youth knowledge empowerment at the junior level because this will address the grain of our sector and succession planning mr speaker it is imperative that the cooperative sector embraces the entrepreneurial spirit to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness to members through these initiatives mr speaker the ministry hold true to his commission which is to help businesses become globally competitive by facilitating dialogue and training as well as financing the market research solutions that create real economic impact it is on this proposition that the ministry provides continued support to the business community with the expectation of economic milestones in the future mr speaker i have started on-site visits to businesses starting in the north of the island and expect to continue these visits well into the new year until we have covered the entire island i thank the business community for the understanding and patience in this matter i want to thank the business community for their cooperation and place on record our gratitude to the government and people of taiwan for their support in the various activities and to thank the staff of the ministry of commerce and i see here with us today the director of the small business development center and my permanent secretary i want to publicly thank them and the staff of the ministry for their sterling support and service to the business community i also want to thank the staff of the collaborating agencies and ministries export centrusha the centrusha bureau of standards the ministry of tourism the ministry of agriculture and the ministry of economic affairs for the youth economy who have facilitated the various business forums in the constituencies on weekends this whole of government collaborative approach in serving the people is commendable and should accelerate the pace of recovery of our economy i thank you mr speaker senior minister mr speaker permit me this opportunity to extend and to join with the prime minister and extend condolences the family of the bereaved health worker who passed earlier today mr speaker on sunday 6 november 2022 centrusha experienced a serious and unusual weather phenomenon which was caused by an upper level trough an isolated incident triggered by low level moisture in the atmosphere the department of meteorological services indicated that this low level moisture in the atmosphere together with a suddenly wind flow created the ideal conditions for such an event which escalated into two hours of torrential rains concentrated in the northeastern quadrant of centrusha first resulting in flash flooding and destruction of private and public infrastructure mr speaker though the forecasts for that weekend advised caution in anticipation of scattered showers thunderstorms and flooding there could not have been a more precise or accurate prediction in such circumstances in which the wind direction altered towards the north of the island at a given time of day mr speaker in more recent times and in such circumstances we have seen a plethora of armchair engineers self-proclaimed meteorologists and disgraceful politicians along with their circuits acolytes and rumour mongers deliberately attempting to fabricate theories intended to misguide the general public mr speaker following the november 6 flash flooding caused by the unusual weather pattern these surrogates aided and abetted by the rumour mongering machinery propagated that the cause of the flash flooding was as a consequence of the failure on the part of this government to the silt the country's rivers mr speaker nothing could be further from the truth but what can one expect from the strangers of the truth mr speaker allow me therefore to dispel the fabrication the lies the deceit and the attempted their attempts to discredit a government of credibility and transparency mr speaker let me present the facts of the on this administration's annual river disilting program for the last three quarters of the year 2021 2022 one following the last july general elections for the quarter october to december 2021 the prime minister and minister for finance the honorable philip jpea if i should be allowed to mention his name conscious of the necessity for adaptation and mitigation measures to cushion the negative impact of climate change allocated four million dollars to implement a number of programs throughout the country if i should repeat following the election general last general elections of july 2021 for the quarter october to december 2021 the prime minister and minister for finance the honorable philip jpea conscious of the necessity for adaptation and mitigation measures to cushion the negative impact of climate change allocated ec four million dollars to implement a number of programs throughout the country they included improvement to drainage systems retaining structures disilting and cleaning up of communities and sanitation programs in all of the 17 constituencies on this island not domnico not synvincent this was followed mr speaker by a second stage by what we call the pre hurricane program in may of 2022 undertaken by the department of infrastructure and aimed at further clearing waterways drainage systems on clogging culverts and channels throughout the island the cost of that initiative was four hundred and ninety eight thousand nine hundred and sixty seven dollars and four cents according to the financials and every constituency benefited government and opposition thirdly mr speaker there was a third program which was implemented in the second quarter of the year the annual disilting program and that program entailed heavier disilting of the major rivers and waterways throughout the island the program ran through the quarter as to as recent as september the value of which was easy two million dollars and again it targeted the entire country mr speaker i'm obliged to reiterate those initiatives to bring home the point that this administration is a responsible caring transparent and accountable administration but further to dispel the lies the fabrication and the propaganda being spread every day of the week by individuals who have absolutely nothing constructive to do at this time notwithstanding mr speaker following the destruction caused by the intense rain and the associated flooding the department of infrastructure has been conducting its reconnaissance to determine the extent of the damage caused to the public infrastructure and the consequential estimated costs of cleanup cleaning roads culverts waterways and removal of slides and debris to reinstate infrastructure and mitigate against future events mr speaker the approximate cost of the initial cleanup is estimated at 1.4 ec 1.4 million ec dollars mr speaker works are ongoing on the cost for reconstruction of roads retaining walls and bridges and are still pending to this end mr speaker a request has been submitted to the minister for finance ahead and that request is submitted ahead of the heavy rainfall and the total is approximately seven million dollars and is still pending that request has been augmented or rather have been addressed to facilitate for the impact of the rains once the resources are identified or mobilized by the department of finance the exercise of the commencement of reconstruction ahead of the 2023-24 budget is absolutely possible mr speaker in addition to the efforts of the department of infrastructure in the immediate response to the rainfall and flooding of november 6 the department has responded to the citizens and business community of the north of the island particularly the lab blocked water was pouring and also canal communities to look forward and deeper beyond the immediate response for adaptation and mitigation interventions which may achieve sustainable resolutions mr speaker to this end last thursday the 17th november a delegation comprising representatives of the broad watch commercial zone a representative of the association of professional engineers of st lucha a senior private sector engineer a representative of the water resources management agency ministry of agriculture the zone one engineering team the deputy chief engineer the permanent secretary in the department of infrastructure the parliamentary representative for grozily and myself minister for infrastructure who toured the affected areas in an attempt to appreciate the conditions on the ground and plan the way forward the tour was extremely productive as we're able to identify some of the major hazards and determined some potential short medium and long-term measures to be implemented to this end a technical working committee is to be constituted comprising both the private and public sectors as an initial mechanism to formulate and chart a path forward on medium term and long term adaptation and mitigation measures for consideration by the government mr speaker an inaugural meeting is scheduled for tomorrow wednesday 23rd november to commence the technical mission it is hoped that this multidisciplinary team will attempt to conduct its activities expeditiously and to advise in a timely manner however mr speaker notwithstanding all the potential initiatives and measures that we may institute to adapt mitigation and build resilience our citizens must change the behavior and the culture climate change isn't the only phenomenon the sultan our rivers won't resolve the problem while adaptation and mitigation aren't the only the only responses necessary our citizens must step up to the plate and take responsibility for their survival by changing the negative ways habits and culture as a people we all must take responsibility individually and collectively for our community the environment and our own well-being mr speaker the time has come for those who are responsible for the degradation and destruction of our society by the practices to stop stop the indiscriminate disposal of garbage particularly in our rivers streams and waterways the last event expose our nakedness as a people by the volume of solid waste which came down with the floodwaters old stoves refrigerators beds mattresses cabinets and plastic bottles all of which exacerbated the situation let's stop the rut and stop the indiscriminate disposal of waste into our rivers rivers and waterways which don't only causes flooding but end up on our beaches and contaminate our coastal waters i thank you mr speaker mr speaker i rise to express my deep sadness and concern about the people who are badly affected by the tragedy which occurred on 6 november 2022 where hundreds of persons were affected due to the flooding we need to find the lord because he spared the lives of those who are badly impacted the government is committed to assisting the victims as best as we can i need to commend my colleague parliamentary representative for rosy lee for his lion's approach in dealing with this flooding nightmare i know he sincerely cares for his constituents to the people in the barbona constituency especially the farmers who lost an entire investment on the farms i understand your plight paints and frustrations so please do not give up let us support each other and start all over again the government will try to assist to help you to get back on your feet mr speaker my minister statement today is to give you a brief update on the situation at the border lake correctional facility and the airports of the home affairs department in combating crime in st lucer mr speaker this government has a plan and a strategy to combat crime in st lucer the plan is designed more at prevention by engaging in building the human resource capacity of its people and creating opportunities to involve the citizens in productive activities mr speaker while many persons focus on the number of murders and other criminal activities they have on the media especially social media i'm here to present a balanced view of what this government has been doing to combat crime and to keep all the solution citizens safe and to reduce criminal activities in this country i want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to the families of the nurse who met her demise as a result of a criminal activity mr speaker i'm pleased to report that as of november 4th 2022 a new director for the border lake correctional facility was appointed in the position of mr bungan he had served at that institution before and this is an indication that he is more than ready and prepared for the task at hand since his appointment the director has already reported on the immediate actions he has taken to start the restructuring of the institution to make it more effective and efficient mr speaker the director has conducted many meetings with persons working at all levels in the institution including the inmates mr speaker the border lake correctional facility has to be transformed into a real reform or correction facility where the focus will be on rehabilitation using intelligence driven and skills development to reduce the level of recidivism which is over 40 percent that is the number of persons who are released from prison about 40 percent comes back into the prison we have to reduce that and with rehabilitation we need to get this back into the society so that they continue to be productive citizens mr speaker at present the institution has a population of 522 inmates with 505 males and 17 females 184 males are penal and 322 are on remand females there are 14 females who are penal and three on remand there are 199 staff members operating at the institution mr speaker in recent times within about two weeks ago we were able to collect contraband un confiscated cannabis charges for phones cell phones batteries cigarettes and weapons at border lake correctional facility it is not easy to keep these inmates under control so i commend the officers for the work that they do in the institution in order to ensure there is discipline there is law and there is order mr speaker you will recall that i reported to this honorable house and inform you mr speaker that the government had commissioned a review of the border lake correctional facility mr speaker i am pleased to report that this report has been submitted to the cabinet of ministers over two months ago the findings of the report was discussed with the management at border lake correctional facility it was also discussed with the new director who assumed the position recently so we have a very clear path on how we approach the challenges at border lake correctional facility mr speaker the report has some interesting recommendations which cause for stronger leadership improvement in communication repairs to the infrastructure of the institution need for greater security more rehabilitation programs for inmates and corrective measures mr speaker there is a need for greater collaboration with other support services to strengthen the capacity for rehabilitation program to make border lake correctional facility a truly correctional facility we need to reduce the percentage as i mentioned of the number of persons who continue to return mr speaker i will repeat it again because a few years ago before this government came in office the last government did not allocate money in the budget for training of officers in the protective services mr speaker i can assure you that this government is committed to develop a very effective and efficient public service and therefore has allocated over hundreds of thousands of dollars to recommend training for police correctional officers that border lake correctional facility the fire service the marine unit and the probation and and parole unit so far mr speaker the training has started among police officers correctional officers marine unit officers fire service officers and probation and parole officers mr speaker this government under the strong and visionary leadership of honorable prime minister who has started putting the available resources in the right places there is a very profound statement which i would like to quote mr speaker no one is safe until everyone is safe we have to commend our law officers who are employed in the protective services for the sacrifices they are making on a daily basis both night and day to keep all of us safe mr speaker this is a country where we need to do all that is possible to keep all of us safe and secure some people laugh but no one is safe until everyone is safe and this knows who in the line of going ahead and doing her daily chores met her demise who would have believed that this is what would have happened and we cannot take this as a light matter it is a very serious matter mr speaker i want to congratulate kusinta descap polis on her appointment as the new commissioner for police in an acting capacity i want to commend honorable prime minister for having the vision in appointing a woman as police commissioner this happened to be the first time a woman has ever been appointed to the position in st lusia as commissioner thereby making history mr speaker you will not imagine what i saw on national television after the appointment of the first female commission of police hts conducted an equal and there was 100 percent endorsement of the prime minister's decision and selection of the commissioner mr speaker on the side no wonder the prime minister's party at his annual general meeting he received 100 percent support from the delegates who voted for his endorsement well there are some who can hold the the convention or a gm yet so we don't know what the outcome will be we see greatest support well the government has invested in vehicles to help the police move around there are plans to build a brand new police divisional headquarters in grossly and the major repairs for the divisional headquarters in few fort training for police training for officers were over 40 new officers were recruited in the fire service monies are being spent to improve communications and security at the borderlay correctional facility training for the marine unit new office space was acquired for the probation and parole unit ongoing repairs in mostly all the police stations and fire stations isn't that a government who cares the marine unit will also be getting his attention with regards to repair and improvement to electrical installation at the facility mr speaker we are currently experiencing changes at the top leadership in the police force the borderlay correctional facility the fire service the marine unit and very soon there will be a change at the probation and parole unit we are we call this the changing of the gun and we expect to build stronger leadership in the corrective and protective services so that we can combat the issue of crime law enforcement and greater discipline in our society mr speaker this government is more than ready to bring about the necessary changes to make st. glucia a safer and better environment for all of us to live and to become very productive in our society mr speaker this government under the leadership of a group of competent men and women i make no apologies for that is on the right path to complete recovery from covid-19 you know what that did to our country we had disasters some call it alan some call it economic they are disaster in all areas so we have to recover from that we need to raise the hope of solution people all of them by putting our people first and invest in the future especially the youth and the elderly mr speaker as we are about to observe the 16th day of activism starting from november 25th to december 10th which is the time the whole world is calling for an end to violence against women and what are we witnessing today the demise of a woman we have too much violence in this country we need to manage our anger and learn to love and care for each other we need to share and show concern for our neighbors friends co-workers and try to live in harmony with each other we need to show concern for the less fortunate and share the little that we have among each other mr speaker we have to help those who became victims of the recent flooding in the north of the island the gender affairs department which is another department under my watch has secured about 1000 dignity kits to distribute among the flood victims as a form of support to them mr speaker with the help of the almighty god and the support of the people all over the island and those at the regional and international levels we will grow from strength to strength in a peaceful safe and secure environment to live and work together as productive citizens mr speaker it's not a service gone to clap to cheer you on a lot because actually we are working on this police we are working on this borderline we are working on this fire service this is to protect us and the government is going to put the people to win this situation to make this we have to make everybody safe for us to be safe there is no safe place to hide except making everybody safe so those of us who are here in this honorable house those of us who are listening out there we have a responsibility to ensure that we secure our country our helen of the west the most beautiful island in the western days we are winning awards and awards and we cannot make her unsafe for our citizens and our visitors mr speaker i thank you for listening papers to be laid prime minister and minister for finance economic development the youth economy justice and national security mr speaker i beg to leave the following paper standing in my name starting instrument number 139 of 2022 excise tax amendment of schedule one number 14 order starting instrument number 141 of 2022 fiscal incentives st lou would work in limited order starting instrument number 147 of 2022 resolution of parliament of arise the making of an order for the 2020 supplement to the revised edition of the laws starting instrument number 148 of 2022 value added tax act to resolution of parliament to approve job value added tax amendment scheduled 3 number 2 order starting instrument number 150 of 2022 customs duties amendment of schedule 4 order starting instrument of 15 12 22 value added tax amendment of schedule 3 number 2 order starting instrument number 15 starting instrument number 15 5 of 2022 companies amendment regulations starting That is management number 156 of 2022, 2020 supplementary revised edition of the Laws Commencement Order. That is management number 157 of 2022, Custom Service Charge, Variation of Service Charge, Members of the House of Assembly Order. Papers in the name of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, Investment, Creative Industry, Industry's Culture and Information to be laid by the Minister for Housing and Local Government. Mr. Speaker, I hold papers for the Honourable Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Tourism, Investment, Creative Industries, Culture and Information and wish to leave the following papers tabled in his name, statutory instrument number 142 of 2022, Tourism, Stimulus and Investment, Adelines, Art, Café, Order, statutory instrument number 143 of 2022, Tourism, Incentives, Adelines, Art, Café, Order, statutory instrument number 144 of 2022, Tourism, Stimulus and Investment, Journal, Honest, Order, statutory instrument number 145 of 2022, Tourism, Incentives, Journal, Honest, Order, statutory instrument number 146 of 2022, Tourism, Incentives, Guides, Limited, Order, statutory instrument number 149 of 2022, Tourism, Incentives, Cicero, Management, Limited, Order. While you are on your feet, you may present the papers tabled in your name. Very well, Mr. Speaker. I contemplated you calling upon me to do so. I wish to leave the following papers tabled in my name, statutory instrument number 140 of 2022, St Lucia National Housing Cooperation, Larry Schultz of U4, number 3, Westin Order. Minister for Commerce, Manufacturing, Business Development, Corporatives and Consumer Affairs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I beg to leave the following papers appearing in my name. Statutory instrument number 138 of 2022, Price Control Amendment number 18, Order. Statutory instrument number 151 of 2022, Price Control Amendment number 19, Order. Statutory instrument number 153 of 2022, Price Control Amendment number 20, Order. Motions, Prime Minister and Minister for Finance. I beg to move the following motion standing in my name. Where it is provided by section 63-1 of the Public Finance Management Act 15.01, the act that the Minister of Finance may, by an affirmative resolution of parliament, borrow from a bank or other financial institution for the capital or credit expenditure of government and whereas it is further provided by section 64 of the act that money borrowed by the government must be paid into and form part of the consolidated fund and whereas the Minister of Finance considers it necessary to borrow an amount of US$5,217,000 from the special funds resources of the Caribbean Development Bank to finance safety nets for vulnerable populations affected by COVID-19 and whereas the loan is repealed in 80 equal or approximately equal and consecutive quarterly installments and whereas the loan payments commenced on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July and the first day of October of each year after a great period of three years following the date of the loan or such later date as the bank specifies in writing and whereas the interest is payable at a rate of 4.39% per annum on the amount of the principal disboots and outstanding and the borrow may request an interest rate conversion from the bank we'd resolve that the parliament of arises a Minister of Finance to borrow 5,217,000 from the special funds resources of the bank to finance safety nets for the vulnerable populations affected by COVID-19 the loan is bid for the resolve that the loan is repairable in 80 equal approximately equal and quarterly installments loan repayments commenced on the first day of January the first day of April and the first day of July and the first day of October of each year after a great period of three years following the date of the loan or such later date as the bank specifies in writing interest is payable at the rate of 4.39% per annum on the amount of the principal disboots and outstanding and the borrow the borrow may request an interest rate conversion from the bank with the speaker this resolution is seeking approval from the parliament to borrow the sum of 5,217,000 US dollars from the special resources of the of the caravan if I open bank allocated from IDB COVID-19 relief resources for the implementation of safety nets for the vulnerable populations affected by the COVID virus Mr. Speaker I did not rehash the effects of COVID on the economy of Saint Lucia and the economy and economies of the world you may recall that Saint Lucia's economy declined by over 20 by about 26 percent after the effects of COVID Mr. Speaker several measures were put into place for the management of COVID Mrs. Speaker and including vaccines story and vaccines Mr. Speaker including the quarantine for people who were suspected of having or been exposed to COVID and isolation of people who had COVID Mrs. Speaker and also the payment of income support mainly from the NIC for people who lost their jobs who lost their livelihoods because of COVID Mrs. Speaker Mrs. Speaker it is calculated that over 33,000 persons in the hotel and tourism sectors were negatively impacted by COVID and 70 percent of households reported income declines Mr. Speaker Mrs. Speaker the biggest job losses occurred in the wholesale retail and restaurant sector Mrs. Speaker Mrs. Speaker it is no secret that COVID really affected the region and Saint Lucia Mrs. Speaker managing the COVID pandemic was difficult but managing the after the effects after the effects of COVID Mrs. Speaker is was made more difficult by the Ukraine by the war in Ukraine Mrs. Speaker Mrs. Speaker I've always said which is a matter that can be disputed that one of our most consistent revenue owners which is the fuel tax the tax from fuel Mrs. Speaker we it was budgeted that would have collected 65 million dollars this year from fuel taxes based on on the normal price of fuel or the projected price of fuel before the war in Ukraine and to date Mrs. Speaker we have not collected 20 million dollars from fuel taxes to date and we've we continue to subsidize cooking gas between 18 and 20 20 dollars every tank of cooking gas that's purchased by the solution public we the government subsidize it between 18 and 20 dollars Mrs. Speaker so Mrs. Speaker you understand that the impact of COVID has really affected us and affected the economy of Saint Lucia Mrs. Speaker and this is why the government sought to seek some support or some or loan from the Caribbean Development Bank special resources Mrs. Speaker Mrs. Speaker the purpose of the loan was to do the following things and my colleague the minister of equity is a very happy man this morning and I'm sure he may need one hour to explain the effects but let me warn you Mr. Speaker he will not be given any extra time he's a very happy man this morning because his due Mrs. Speaker is coming through Mrs. Speaker the project will provide income support and grants to over 8496 poor and vulnerable solutions Mr. Speaker in order to provide that income support and grants to these to these 8,000 old people Mrs. Speaker the project would comprise the following one protection using existing cash transfer programs two protection for the vulnerable populations not on present transfer programs working in the informal sector and support for learning continuity in vulnerable groups and project management Mrs. Speaker Mrs. Speaker the minister will give me detail these these aspects these four aspects and he will detail them Mrs. Speaker but Mrs. Speaker I want to say to you that the project is a one-year project and we are going to ensure that there is equity Mrs. Speaker in the disbursement of these funds all constituencies and all people regardless of where they live Mrs. Speaker regardless of who represents them will be able to seek to get benefits from this loan Mrs. Speaker Mrs. Speaker the is very important Mrs. Speaker that I make that that distinction because Mrs. Speaker in previous times people from constituencies represented by the opposition were kept away from these facilities or from these initiatives by the government Mrs. Speaker I recall in my constituency there was a call to increase the number of vulnerable people in my constituency and I'm not blaming the officials of the ministry because they were under orders Mrs. Speaker not to contact the parliamentary representative not to contact him on the line they would not and these the people who were defeated who continue to get defeated and will get defeated in the future were given they were given the privilege to put names on these to put names to get support Mrs. Speaker Mrs. Speaker during the during COVID when food was being distributed in the constituency Mrs. Speaker the parliamentary rep of the six constituencies that were in opposition not one of them were called to give a a muscle of food to their constituency Mrs. Speaker not one of them and that is a fact Mrs. Speaker that's a fact but this program that will not happen Mrs. Speaker you know what happened the plan was to disenfranchise and to weaponize these projects so that they would have got political gain by that Mrs. Speaker but the people of St. Lucia saw differently the people of St. Lucia knew differently Mrs. Speaker and that is why the people of St. Lucia elected us not to do the same but to do it but to ensure that there is equity Mrs. Speaker and that is why that is why Mrs. Speaker under the constituency development program the members of the opposition who never never found it necessary to involve any member of the of our side we're in opposition Mrs. Speaker they are given an allocation like members of the government and that will continue Mrs. Speaker that will continue so when you speak about victimization when you speak about marginalization Mrs. Speaker it's not on this side so Mrs. Speaker I am very happy that the variable people some of them will get support but there's still a lot of work to be done there's still people in this country who need support there are still people in this country who are striving who are under pressure and there are still people in this country Mrs. Speaker who are trying to fool these people who are trying to make them believe that the government is not doing anything to help them Mrs. Speaker or the government is doing nothing to take them out of the vulnerabilities the government is Mrs. Speaker within the resources that we have and this is why we are borrowing we are borrowing this that money today Mrs. Speaker and I want to wait I want to wait for the discussion and borrowing I'm going to hold my peace I'm going to hold my peace Mrs. Speaker waiting waiting Mrs. Speaker for the discussion and borrowing I'm going to hold my peace Mrs. Speaker because Mrs. Speaker sometimes I wonder why must people just not speak the truth when things are easily very valuable and I was speaking to a friend of mine last night and he said to me there are certain leaders like Boris Johnson the president the ex-president Trump and the guy who just got beaten in Brazil I didn't say that deliberately speak lies because they believe that when they speak lies people will not believe I want to say in these lies because we will not say in the meantime he made a big president any line so Mr. Speaker I reflected and I reflected I reflected and I must say to my friend that he's speaking the truth because I wonder why must people lie when things are easily easily easily terrified Mrs. Speaker so Mrs. Speaker I would like members to support this motion because for the next year at least 8,000 vulnerable people in Salusia will get some form of much needed relief I thank you Mr. Speaker. The members of the Salusia Ultimus. Thank you Mr. Speaker good morning colleagues Mr. Speaker if you will permit me just prior to speaking on the motion before us to first congratulate all musicians on the celebration of Saint Cecilia's Day I also want to take the opportunity as we speak in regards to musicians to also congratulate Mr. Speaker a group from my community shows a musical symphony orchestra program that was launched on Sunday primarily made up of very young people who will be learning to play various instruments Mr. Speaker and I'm happy that the Ministry of Education has supported that program going forward to make it a sort of an after-school program to encompass all children from the community Mr. Speaker. I also want Mr. Speaker to take the opportunity to thank and to congratulate all the volunteers who are coming forward to provide the expertise in terms of teaching the young children Mr. Speaker it is you know extremely heartening in the environment that we live to recognize people who give up their time their resources to come forward and to help our young people and our community and as I'm speaking and volunteering volunteerism Mr. Speaker I also want to take the time out to thank the members of the Lamar's Congregation of Seventh Day who also came out from a voluntary perspective Mr. Speaker to clean up their community which they find which they found Mr. Speaker was very unsightly and not you know conducive for you know traversing. In addition Mr. Speaker we have had a program going on for the past couple of Sundays where young people from the community were engaged particularly from a group called DeRoll which is a shortened form to recognize free communities DeBrell, Roblo and Lamar's where they've been coming out Mr. Speaker to try to patch up the you know the very rough roads that they have to travel to to go home Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker I also want to express my sympathy to the young lady who lost her life this morning it is always difficult to hear of the passing of anyone particularly by violent means and especially Mr. Speaker when you've had some interaction with the individual it is even more you know stressful Mr. Speaker you know I want to sympathize with her family the medical fraternity a young daughter Mr. Speaker and I want Mr. Speaker to ensure the Prime Minister had told him before that he has my full support as it relates Mr. Speaker doing whatever is necessary to ensure that we stop that scourge Mr. Speaker. I would like to encourage Mr. Speaker that we you know create an atmosphere where people believe that there are consequences because I believe one of the reasons why a lot of people do what they do is because they believe the absence of consequences particularly when you know there seem to be a slap on the wrist I know that's outside of our our sphere Mr. Speaker a lot of that has to do with the you know the system that we operate in Mr. Speaker but we all need to be on the same page to ensure that we discourage such behavior. Mr. Speaker on the motion before us I was actually very delighted to hear the Honorable Prime Minister speak to the devastating effects of COVID-19 Mr. Speaker on our country on the world Mr. Speaker and to recognize that even a year and some months later we are still you know you know looking at providing assistance for people who have been affected by COVID-19 and that is why Mr. Speaker I you know I was always a bit discouraged when we were in government and there was a continuous bashing by this government of the borrowing Mr. Speaker because I have continuously said it is a necessity of government to borrow Mr. Speaker and we would have known that during COVID everything stopped running no revenue was coming in Mr. Speaker but government had to continue to operate which included you know paying a season seven salaries addressing the pain of our bonds Mr. Speaker because had we not done these things because Senatorsha would have had a credibility problem you know we could have been downgraded so many effects Mr. Speaker that could have spiral out of control had we not borrowed Mr. Speaker and a lot of the money that we borrowed Mr. Speaker went into budgetary support which Mr. Speaker was well known by everybody but sometimes you know Mr. Speaker the politics come into play and we you know we create certain things which are which we should not create Mr. Speaker so borrowing is a necessary evil by governments Mr. Speaker and I agree that as opposition as members of the public government must be kept on their toes as it relates to what we borrow for but I can say Mr. Speaker that what we borrow for under the COVID times was really untrue it was to ensure that Senatorsha did not go into the sort of deep hole you know that you know COVID could have created Mr. Speaker so I'm happy Mr. Speaker particularly that $14 million has been borrowed this morning particularly get towards the vulnerable and I will make a case this morning to the Minister of Equity to not to forget various groups in our communities and I speak to the club 60 in particular in my community a group which takes care of senior citizens who cannot you know cook food and other social activities that they engage in Mr. Speaker who had a lot of their resources you know stopped for one reason or the other while we were in office you know we did provide some assistance and I'm hoping that you know that sort of intervention from the Ministry of Equity would continue to recognize such entities who provide you know significant work in the in the communities so I look forward to that sort of you know community sharing of the resources Mr. Speaker but Mr. Speaker the Prime Minister made one statement I just want to to bring to his attention he said that we on this side were contacted to add names to the list Mr. Prime Minister I have not been contacted I don't know if it's something that will come but I have not been contacted with regards to adding names to to know I have never been contacted to add in names to a vulnerable list so if that may have been an oversight I would think because you know when it comes to the vulnerable they seek the shot in the senior citizens who cannot fear for themselves we should never make that a partisan issue Mr. Speaker and therefore I look forward to you know that that that correction be made I thank you Mr. Speaker Minister for Equity thank you Mr. Speaker good morning let me acknowledge today's celebration of Saint Cecilia musical day and I wish to acknowledge the many children in our early childhood centers in castry's office I didn't wait for Saint Cecilia's day but the first first action of mine after election was to use my constituency allocation an employer retired retired person from the police band to assign the responsibility to teach music using musical bells to all early childhood centers in castry's office so I am pleased this morning that the children at early childhood centers in castry's office they're doing extremely well because they're being tutored by a professional musician using musical bells and of course I wish to congratulate them as they learn as they move on and I'm looking forward to castry's office producing quite a number of musicians in future look out for them castry's office will take over the police band and a more sad note I wish to express my deep sympathies for what took place this morning I wouldn't say much to this it's an emotional time for families and anytime these things happen it hits me to the core of course what I can say God knows best but we'll continue to tarry and move on and do what we have to do I rise to support this very important borrowing Mr. Speaker but of course I would like to acknowledge the permanent secretary in the ministry of equity Ms. Velder Joseph who worked tirelessly worked very very hard worked night to put this proposal with the cdb together so today we can realize this thing before cabinet a total of 5.2 million US dollars borrowing almost 14 million dollars 15 million easy dollars to the poor and vulnerable of Saint Lucia Mr. Speaker it is well known that Saint Lucia as a small island development state existing within the context of climate change is highly vulnerable to multiple shocks or hazards some are natural some are anthropogenic man made and that its population our people are likely to be negatively impacted by those shocks on a frequent basis it is also widely known that those most impacted and who encountered great difficulty in recovering or bouncing back are those with limited resources to cope with the consequences and I speak of victims of landslides victims of flooding victims fire victims hurricanes victims of domestic violence orphans persons living with disabilities rehabilitated inmates the poor living with HIV abundant elderly and older persons the retired poor and marginalized groups but if we have to pause Mr. Speaker and review our national statistics as it relates to the poor and vulnerable we will recognize that a significant percentage of our population is deemed poor and according to the survey of living condition and household budgetary survey of 2016 it was deemed that 25 percent are persons below the poverty line and with significant percentage that are vulnerable to poverty how then do we treat our brothers and sisters who are not able to adequately provide for themselves and their families how do we assist them so that they are able to enjoy a decent standard of living how do we assist them in building resilience to cope with and respond to shocks should we discard them should we say as some of us say in Creole maniaw fair carbon who say maniaw don't mean sour fair sour where should it be what we say to our people in times like this mr. Speaker colleague parliamentaries I want to draw your attention to the universal declaration of human rights a declaration which St. Lucia has signed on to and to highlight article 25 one which states everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself or herself and for his or her family including food clothing housing and medical care and the necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment sickness disability with the wood old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond the control and I wish to also add coming from our cabinet the right to education because we in this cabinet believe and we borrow from our Jamaicans people that every child can learn and every child must learn so mr. Speaker this article not only captures the philosophy of the government of St Lucia in ensuring that we put people first and that our national development program is inclusive but it also appropriately encapsulates the rationale behind this bill as well as the design of the project we have titled correctly safety net for vulnerable population affected by coronavirus mr. Speaker whether persons accepted accepted or not inequalities exist in our society discrimination exist and we and we have the knowledge that there are families who for whatever reason are unable to meet the basic needs and enjoy the right of a standard of a decent standard of living mr. Speaker at the ministry of equity we see such families we interact with head of such households and we understand the need to assist them until they are able to manage independently mr. Speaker we understand that the poor and vulnerable families need assistance and support and that they require protection particularly given our current context where we are confronted by the prolonged negative impact of COVID-19 we strongly believe that we should not allow the less fortunate brothers and sisters among us to fall for the cracks unable to meet the basic needs and while we stand aside and do nothing mr. Speaker I want to be very clear social protection is not a matter of charity or generosity it is a basic responsibility of the state and one that we take seriously it is the right thing to do in recognizing the rights of all solutions to a basic standard of living and it is on that basis that the government will through my ministry spend no effort in providing appropriate support to those in need and will aggressively seek out and utilize new and existing social protection services to help individuals and families cope with crisis and shocks improve livelihoods opportunities invest in human capacity and protect the aging population as we advance our national development agenda mr. Speaker it is not often that we come to this house to borrow for people and direct investment in people we usually run the tables when we borrow for roads and infrastructure we can relate to hotels that we bring in income but this government this administration understand that when we invest in people we invest in our future mr. Speaker the recent rains would have proven that asphalt will not last even after you've spent millions to resurface the roads when dealing with flood with floods like ours buildings will not survive after the winds would have blown the roofs from hurricanes and we have no insurance to recover but when we invest in our people our people the lowest among us I can assure you mr. Speaker we have invested in the future of st. russia mr. Speaker although these interventions speaks directly to persons in back impacted by coronavirus I will not elaborate on the negative impacts of COVID-19 particularly on the point vulnerable individuals and families as I believe that there is familiarity with this issue rather mr. Speaker for full understanding of what we are seeking to do permit me to speak a little on social protection and how social protection systems can be effectively leveraged to support families in mr. Speaker as noted by the World Bank social protection systems that are well designed are powerful as they enhance human capacity human capital and productivity reduce inequalities build resilience and end intergenerational cycle of poverty such systems and tools are transformative as they help mitigate economic and fiscal shocks mr. Speaker the inequalities among us will not go away if we do not purposefully and directly address the social and economic challenges which confronts us but particularly at this time especially following the brutal effects of COVID-19 pandemic and the adverse impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war on st. lusia and the wider Caribbean region this project therefore is intended to serve as a direct response to our socioeconomic realities providing social assistance or temporary relief to targeted individuals and households who were negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and who have not been able to recover or whose situation have worsened mr. Speaker and just as I speak of those who have not recovered mr. Speaker i'm not just speaking as a parliamentarian who have sat behind a desk over the years i've taken interest even when the ministry has not called for it or when ssd have been called for it i would call the fire service and ask them about fire victims mr. Speaker you would be surprised that's there are data at the fire service of the many fires we have had and persons who have not recovered because of the socioeconomic situation mr. Speaker you can choose to call the fire service chief and ask them to provide you with the numbers and you may be alarmed of the hundreds of persons mr. Speaker i happen to visit a lady recently was home still had the mark of mud from tomas the flood in which took place she has not recovered mr. Speaker when we speak of persons vulnerable we are talking about persons who can hardly ever recover when do when they experience those shocks the government is seeking to provide a safety net to those families or households to prevent them from falling deeper into poverty or from experiencing worsening conditions many of the components that i will highlight is for a period of six months and mr. Speaker upon assuming the responsibility minister of equity social justice and empowerment the largest caste transfer of this country is the public assistance program mr. Speaker i have respected this program to a T and every while i represent the second largest constituency and of course with vulnerable persons i haven't taken one person from my constituency and unilaterally asked the ministry to put them on because there's a system for persons to be assessed and i respect the 3.0 SL net if you are not qualified you ought not to be on it and that's why i support the prime minister we are not doing things in terms of just parliamentarians you would if you look at the data which i have seen it happened that the largest not the the greatest number of persons being still under the SL net is from souffle i'm sure the minister is not aware but i will i will share with her the details i have looked at the data set not castry southeast and slurry canry's also is well served there not grossing it but i'm saying that it is being done objectively some time ago some persons just put persons on pap and today mr. Speaker the public assistance we are cleaning because while it's costing this government over 20 million dollars annually to maintain a total of 3600 persons we are now seeking ways to look at pathways to graduate people out of this but there's a thousand 500 persons who are waiting to come on and those persons were certified and qualified by the by the tool being used by SL net 3.0 we cannot get them on because there's no fiscal space but in this difficult covid time do we allow them to languish no this government say let us borrow so we give them six months of relief while we take care of seeing how we graduate persons so we get a permanent solution to public assistance i commend the prime minister for doing this mr. Speaker in keeping with what i said earlier safetyness for vulnerable population affected by coronavirus this project aims to contribute to ensuring a minimum level of quality of life for vulnerable persons amidst the crisis caused by covid 19 as well as preserving human capital the project consists of four main components one protection using existing cash transfers like i said protection for vulnerable population not on the roster for transfer programs working in informal sector support for learn for continuing for continuity in um for learning continuity in vulnerable groups and the project administration and management mr. Speaker let's examine these in a little more details component one protection using the existing cash transfer programs like i said it's going to cost us 7666 thousand us mr. Speaker our public assistance the largest cash transfer program of course is under tremendous pressure and i like i have explained it we are going to support 800 persons on the list because when this was prepared there were 800 persons waiting to get on by the time we completed this it came up to 1500 so the pressure continues to build because persons are going to the welfare department they are being processed and if they are eligible they are put on the waiting list it is sad that some people who are struggling struggling cannot find room to receive the 300 dollars and we just do not want to without being objective just remove somebody because they do not look like so we are working and we have started mr. Speaker recently there lucila gave us 450 000 one of the pathways that we have agreed in getting people away from public assistance is micro enterprise and that is why we had 45 persons who are on public assistance who have been deemed to qualify or to to graduate from public from from these public assistance have embarked on a micro enterprise program so that they could open the small business so we're not just removing them we are empowering them so that they can maintain a good standard of living and madam commerce madam commerce i'm really happy that you are providing support in that regard mr. Speaker for households on the waiting list for almost two years waiting and i think sometimes of those persons who are waiting in anguish and i asked myself are they waiting for someone to to pass because one way people get out of the of the program when they pass somebody else gets on you know and these are poor struggling vulnerable persons so yes many member for schroesel of course schroesel will be part of it because we we do not hold any doctrine that exclude we believe in including everyone mr. Speaker the horizontal expansion of the public assistance program at a cost of 666 000 this sub component will support a horizontal expansion to finance temporary cash transfers to the 800 persons and of course under the program we are going to support them for six months the vertical expansion of the child disability grant mr. Speaker this one is in really one of the saddest experience in terms of social development persons living with disability mr. Speaker i have spoken about this in cabinet i i i asked p.m. to allow me to visit some of the jurisdiction and i went to jamaica to mustard seeds where i i witnessed you know a priest with a vision managing 174 persons with disability and i'm talking about chronic disabilities and as i speak there i'm sure tia was just 10 years old from lakwa would understand why i will mention a name tia is receiving 200 a month mom is quite young tia goes to the donata school tia along with two other students like her is being is must attend school only three days a week three days a week and must be managed by two teachers because of her disability i do not when i went to see tia i was not happy with the conditions that tia was living in but her disability was striking i asked the the normal person watching somebody who is mentally physically must be on your back always you would almost dismissed that this person really do not know what's going on when i went to the donata school mr. Speaker i was told by the teacher that tia is a bright child and she can experience hurt as well as laughter she she doesn't respond in the way that we respond but she knows and i said oh my god how many times persons may have said things that she's aware and she's hurt think of it and to what extent we have dismissed as these people cannot learn whereas they told me that she's bright and i told prime minister there was a young Monday on a wheelchair who said i want to see the prime minister and he was happy to see me at the donata school mr. Speaker we are going to increase this 200 dollars to 400 dollars for the next six months this is what we're going to do we're going to increase the contribution so that tia gets more that's what we're going to do and i've already lobbied with the time when his ambassador through prime minister to see if i can get a vehicle for persons going to children attending the donata school because i would like for these children to attend school because every child can learn and every child must learn the vertical expansion for persons living which hiv is part of this program a total of 19 000 dollars of course and i'm talking about poor individuals who are almost disregarded dismissed you know in san lusia l'aniel le cosidi way not with this government we're going to increase the food vouchers and of course the 100 dollars will be increased by 200 for the next six months mr. Speaker also we're going to take care of those in foster care programs a total of 44 000 dollars will be invested to increase the contribution to foster care from three to four hundred dollars for the next six months mr. Speaker i must inform this honorable house that cash transfers are very important to social protection programs and have a multiplier effects on the local economy cash can stimulate recovery by creating short-term employment flows increasing consumer purchasing power and support trade rebuild marketing linkages and for those of us who are the purists on on on this economic system that you must invest invest we're saying that when you invest in the people it also have a multiplier effect on the economy now mr. Speaker i don't do component two for the vulnerable population not on the rosters for transfer programs working in the informal sector a total of us 3.1 3.2 million dollars will be invested and this component has three subcomponents income support for cash transfers to displace informal sector workers and that includes transfers we're going to support persons who are somewhere on this under near our visitors in arts and crafts dry goods vendors tour guides cruise personnel and taxi operators this support will follow a cycle of cash transfers valued at five hundred dollars per month for three months we will support these individuals detail we are working on the details as to what would qualify for this and this would be received by cabinet for the approval but we will be supporting this a sub another subcomponent of 1.1 million the government of senator will provide a provided oh yes we are reimbursing the government because some time ago we provided support to bar owners on the taxi driver so a total of 1.2 million dollars will be reimbursed in the consolidated fund for that action that we did so that is coming back and of course mr speaker 18 thousand dollars will go towards feeding the homeless an indigent population so persons who have been feeding individuals on the street 18 thousand dollars will go and support this so that we ensure for the next six months December until June that we support these individuals mr speaker component free focus is on support of learning continuity in vulnerable populations a total of 1.2 million dollars will be spent mr speaker during the peak of COVID-19 the ministry of education was forced to employ virtual approaches for continued learning during this process several students particularly from poor and vulnerable households with disadvantage and they did not have access to the devices at all under this component financing will facilitate the purchase of 133 devices for the ministry of equity to manage btc will receive the transit home opt on girls center the rainbow children's home in viewfort 108 devices for viewfort and denry we will provide support in these areas mr speaker will also find five interactive screens to support technology enhance teaching and learning in classrooms that will be procured by the ministry of equity additionally mr speaker 500 devices will be provided for learners in vulnerable households benefiting from pop so apart from providing devices to these institutions that are most times ignored the boys training center opt on girls center the rainbow homes where we have our vulnerable people we will provide devices to them so that they continue learning because again we believe every child can learn every child must learn another sub component is minor works we'll be looking at um establishing a learning resource center new beginning transit home we will support um the air conditioning system electrical fittings there as well and the capacity building a sub component will be providing 40 teachers across the ministry across various agencies from the ministry of equity um we will be providing them with devices as well mr speaker the final sub component of this program is the 1.5 million towards the managing of the entire program and providing support to some schools of course we're looking at transportation we're looking at nutrition and of course looking at the whole management of this program mr speaker the project budget has been calculated at just a mere 5.2 million and it will be financed through a softloan a concessionary concessionary financing from special funds resources from the carbian development bank mr speaker we are pleased that we'll be able to benefit this benefit from this and ensure that the people who we are concerned about who are within the purview of this ministry will find some support over the next six months in summary mr speaker the funds requesters will assist the government in financing this project which will promote equitable cash transfers as well as the expansion of our safety nets services using a platform of existing cash transfer programs and special transfers to persons directly affected by covid it will also support education continuity in st lucer as well as vulnerable population working in the informal sector who are not part of the existing cash transfers arrangement mr speaker this project supports the long-term vision of the government of st lucer as articulated in the revised national social protection policy 2022 to 2040 which focuses on provision and fulfillment of the needs and rights of individuals in particular at risk children the poor the vulnerable elderly youth men and women families and communities and the development of the full potential of citizens pay in particular attention to the poorest and most vulnerable populations for a comprehensive integrated and sustainable social protection system those needs and rights includes the following basic income security in the form of various social transfers such as pensions for the elderly pensions with persons with disabilities child benefits income support benefit skill development employment guarantees and services for unemployed and underemployed to available and affordable access to essential social services in areas of health water and sanitation education food security housing welfare and order defined according to national priorities three strengthening the resilience of the poor vulnerable and deprived individuals groups and communities facing economic social climatic and health risk and shocks through enhanced adaptive social protection mr speaker as we know the government of st lucer has formulated and continues to implement policies and programs intended to result in socio-economic transformation and improve livelihoods for its citizens in keeping with its commitment to the 2040 sustainable development agenda and the medium term development strategy 2021-26 the objective of this project is no different it will complement ongoing initiatives aimed at putting people first in addition to our n i c contributory social security we have strengthened our social protection system and now stands on 10 pillars the home care program administered through this ssdf which catches for approximately 500 persons educational assistance program laptops payment facilities fees cxc fees school feeding program being administered through the department of education food voucher programs for persons in need and many food and food related subsidies non-vacable food items for a public assistance program which currently caters for 3600 beneficiary households which provide and support to include burial assistance i care emergency housing and medical assistance the national housing assistance program the labor market activity to include short-term employment initiatives to include caretakers roadside cleaning by both the ministry of local government and the ministry of infrastructure stimulus caretakers program seven the micro entrepreneurship program to function as one of a graduation pathway in collaboration with ssdf and belfern the foster care program persons living with hiv program providing assistance and ten we are now approaching universal health care please note that we are currently exploring unemployment insurance and social insurance as other pillars to support our social protection initiative mr. speaker this list is not exhaustive nor was it intended to be rather it provides a range of support services available to vulnerable households from which they can benefit based on needs mr. speaker parliamentarian colleagues the safety net for vulnerable population affected by coronavirus also seeks to support vulnerable groups in need of assistance let us support investment in our less fortunate brothers and sisters by supporting this bill which will pave the way for immediate rollout for this project components as we move forward on the path of development let us ensure that we leave no one behind single mothers single fathers members of the lgbtq the elderly young men and women in prison abandoned children those in foster care and in adoption services the homeless the mentally challenged persons living with hiv they all have rights and our social protection system ensures that no one should be excluded or discriminated against in the song of the whole is of 1969 this he says that he ain't heavy he's my brother they ain't heavy they are brothers and sisters and in the sums of sums 19 9 was 18 it says for the deedy shall not always be forgotten and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever i thank you you remember for me good south my voice to the many others in the house this morning that gave their condolences and sympathy to the family of the nurse that was sadly killed in this sadly very violent environment that we find ourselves in st lusia today i believe that what makes this particular murder so chilling mr speaker is that a person on the way to pick up their daughter to go to school in their car could be so gruesomely killed and it's a person who we all can relate to a hardworking woman a person that probably more than likely did more things right than she did things wrong and i think that we can all empathize with her and her family at this time of great grief and only hope that this government finds the courage to stop blaming everyone else for the issues and to get down to the work they promised people of this country sadly we still don't see any plan to curb the amount of crime that's taking place in this country we hear lots of words lots of things but the actual getting down to dealing with the structural problems in our society the disc government seems to be neglecting all of those things and to realize that it is a collective action of the economy socially everywhere that is going to be needed to turn the tide of crime in this country and it may even start mr speaker with the example that we set in this in this very same house mr speaker permit me to congratulate the prime minister and the cabinet on the support that they have given to the majestic workers this is support mr speaker that was long overdue if we recall majestics went out of business in 2004 during the slp administration and that was then soon followed by the then prime minister king i think it was if i'm not mistaken the majestics is in his own constituency of which sadly nothing was done and then we had a second another tenure of an slp government 2000 and 11 to 2016 in which again they were left wanting and during my tenure mr speaker when this was brought to my attention in the first three years when we were trying to put the economy right and we finally were able to get this thing sorted we then were confronted with coven but i did meet with the n w and i did meet with the workers themselves and we did come to very similar terms that the prime minister has outlined today so i want to um say i'm sorry to all of those workers that it took those numbers of years in order for them to have been reimbursed but i'm glad today that it has happened the prime minister also mr speaker brought up the issue with regards to liat liat is no stranger to us mr speaker in fact on more than one occasion in the history of liat liat hasn't actually found itself in financial disarray in fact on two occasions the most recent one being i believe in 2009 and 2010 there was a a regional bailout of liat the bailout was to forgive liat of all of its debts to provide liat with new loans to give liat new planes and to give it a new lease on life in fact liat's greatest complaint was a competition from caribbean star caribbean star was closed all the other competition was closed and sadly mr speaker even before coven liat had already found itself back into significant debt so much so mr speaker in 2017 at a meeting that i did attend with other heads the other heads had even some of the ones which were the most ardent supporters of liat had to finally say enough is enough and many of those countries turned over their shares back to liat and sadly when covid came it was the final nail in the coffin for liat but the lesson to be learned here mr speaker is that the things that ailed liat which was not competition was protectionism and the fact is one can go through a multitude of examples and that's not the form today mr speaker of examples of where liat has been protected and it avoided doing the right things and the mess that we are finding ourselves into the we're persons exactly what the prime minister said some people who can afford it and some people who have us visas have the opportunity of going to miami to go back down to antiga and to barbados for those who cannot they may have to find themselves going to trinidad or to other places in order just to get to barbados but the reality mr speaker is that the mess that we find ourselves into the is because we neglected all of the signs that were there that liat was in trouble and that we needed to address the aviation industry in its holistic sense in order to be able to create a more competitive environment believes mr speaker as an example with a population of 350 000 people has two airlines that have survived over 30 years both of them making money and there are many more examples but sadly in this region caracom we have eight civil aviation authorities eight different regulators we had an incestuous echo in which former pilots and workers of liat were employed at echo and protected liat but again we're paying that price today mr speaker and there's nobody to blame but ourselves um in this particular situation so mr speaker i want to address the specific bill at hand mr speaker which is a very important one and i i want to again thank cdb um for making these concessionary funds available um to san lucha and i notice mr speaker that they are specifically to deal with the what i call covid um uh fallout that we have the aftermath of covid that's still with us and the reality is mr speaker sometimes when i hear the members on the opposite side speak specifically about covid and the economic situation that we have found ourselves in it boggles the mind and when the prime minister would go on and on about what he considers to be irresponsible statements being made about debt i want him to remember not too long ago when he was sitting on this side that's exactly what they were saying despite all of the evidence and i just want to go back through what that evidence was mr speaker because it's very important if we go to the social and economic review mr speaker on page 122 we'll see that in 2000 sorry sorry mr speaker 2021 the revenue in 2019 2020 was 1.185 billion dollars that revenue actually would have been higher but we had already started to see the impact of covid in february and march of 2020 and if you look at 2018 2019 of 1.2 billion dollars for the year 2020 and 2021 government's revenue dropped to 925 million dollars mr speaker it's one of the prime ministers speaks about that he's only recovered 40 40 million dollars of the gas subsidy excise tax really and this is a problem this is a crisis we lost almost 250 million dollars of tax revenue of which there was zero ability to recover any of that money the current revenue mr speaker dropped from 1.14 million dollars to 870 million dollars why the member from castry central like you know what you i have to say to mr speak he really entertains me he really does so mr speaker mr speaker you're telling me that he wants to make a reference to that the fact is that when we drop the that rate mr speaker from 15 percent to 12 and a half which was a campaign promise revenue which was expected to have dropped that's according to the imf by 55 million dollars only in the first year dropped by 15 million and within 18 months we had recovered to where we were previously and the only way that that mathematically can take place mr speaker is that there was economic activity and that economic activity is to sustain by the fact mr speaker mr speaker mr speaker the increase in the the fuel tax happened long before kovat i'm talking about before before kovat right the revenue was 1.8 billion dollars and it dropped to 925 recurrent revenue dropped from 1.4 billion to 870 million dollars mr speaker taxes on goods and services dropped from 277 million to 168 taxes on international trade which is primarily your tourism sector and your airlines 517 million to 398 million dollars mr speaker but sadly mr speaker when revenue had dropped over 250 million dollars and then the other invisible cash burden that the state had mr speaker was the rollover of bonds we had almost 800 million dollars of bonds that were due to be rolled over that year mr speaker and there was a 25 redemption on those bonds these are people that had not like government like the rest of the world had not anticipated the kovat was going to come had invested bonds and now needed the cash either for their household or for their own businesses mr speaker so over 200 million dollars of additional cash had to be found and that is why when you read the financial and economic review and the numbers are netted off because what happened mr speaker is we converted shorter term more expensive bonds into longer term borrowing at a cheaper rate and that is why the average interest rates average interest rates of what so you so so you borrowed you borrowed you borrowed you borrowed you borrowed 330 you borrowed 330 million dollars you borrowed 330 million dollars right of longer term revenue is that not true from the world bank from the imf and from cdb to to provide for budgetary support right okay but for budgetary support and what you did is when you were paying back on the bonds you did not pay you did not take any additional bonds you ended up converting it and that's the point you know mr speaker all of a sudden they just want to figure out the numbers disappear by themselves the reality is the reality is exactly what the prime minister just said mr speaker that the borrowings that were undertaken were there to provide budgetary support and let me show you mr speaker let me show you mr speaker so you're talking about wages and salaries during 2020 and 2021 was 413 million dollars interest payments was 164 million dollars goods and services which is the operating cost of of government your rent your utilities on your your contracts was 279 million dollars so it means that you had mr speaker expenses of 1.5 billion and you only had a revenue of 925 million plus you lost the money from the bonds which you had to pay out so the monies that we brought in literally literally were used to pay for salaries were looked to pay for goods and services and current transfers because we could not use the imf money or the world bank money in order to pay any debt so it's the remaining revenue we had so again mr speaker we've heard members on the opposite side repeatedly speak about how was the largest borrowing ever and that what were the options and then mr speaker they had the audacity the audacity given that kind of problem which was unprecedented to say that when we gave $500 a month to provide for income support which they to date have not been able to do and I hopefully I didn't hear the minister say it specifically but I'm hoping there's going to be some level of income support in the $15,000 he promised people maybe that's going to be in this bill or the next bill so here it is today mr speaker revenue has recovered to where it was before revenue has recovered to where it was before mr speaker this government does not have that excuse and they still have not been able to do it mr speaker yes mr speaker in part and I see money was used and also in part money's from the recurrent was used okay but guess what we found mechanisms to be able to provide that support you have been there mr speaker here there's a man who said that he was the he was ready for the job he's been in training and he was ready and here's a year and a half has gone by mr speaker the fishermen are still waiting everybody else is waiting for the 1500 because he was so adamant mr speaker he said at $500 was in civic that was an insult to people that we should be giving $1500 well here it is mr speaker that he has an opportunity he has an opportunity here's the point that covered the members of microsoft is the speaker now i never said so what i know is i beat him in the election you see mr speaker you know when people have to resort to that kind of of of rhetoric in order to justify their own existence i feel sorry for them but the reality is mr speaker the reality mr speaker is that the people on the ground are feeling it they have lost confidence in this government they know that this government has now fooled them they know that they were bluffed because almost 18 months has gone by and none of the promises that they've made have come through mr speaker and again time time will now show time will now show what had happened mr speaker boy mr speaker you know mr speaker after one or sometimes right if it was not for the united workers party and what and how we transparently conduct our business instead of artificially a man wins a hundred percent vote support really you want to want us to believe that everybody mr speaker so mr speaker one of the things is i know i'm confident myself is united workers party has a process for its leadership and that process will go through and i am very confident that i will prevail at the end of the mrs speaker but i'm i'm very happy that the members on the opposite side can gain that form of entertainment but that does not work on me and it's not working on anybody else what the reality is is that they cannot deflect the people of this country from the pain that people are feeling the pain in their pockets the pain in their bellies the pain in their in the fair in their hearts mr speaker significant amount of pain that the people are suffering in this country and this government is providing absolutely nothing to be able to give them any form of hope so mr speaker i continue so when we now look at the labor unemployment during 20 before 2019 or when we came into government unemployment was a 24.1 percent mr speaker by 2019 we had dropped it to 16.8 percent mr speaker and then all of a sudden during covid which would be expected tourism closed it went back up to 21.7 percent and i was very heartened mr speaker although it was very late in the day that the ministry of statistics put out a report to show that the unemployment by the uh first quarter of 2022 had dropped back down to 16 percent sadly mr speaker i'm pretty sure that number is in excess of 21 percent today but it showed that where's that unemployment 15 000 hotel workers mr speaker woke up and didn't have a place to go to work and i'm very happy that the member mentioned unemployment insurance and the reason why we had to borrow the money or not borrow the money the reason why n ic was creative in what it did was to make up for that fact because n ic is a pension fund not an unemployment insurance many people get confused mr speaker and so n ic was able to take monies a hundred million dollars out of its future in order to be able to provide some money to the people and it was the initiatives of this government my government that allowed us to go and negotiate a wholesale moratorium on loans for everybody in this country yes mr speaker mr speaker i'm so happy that the member brought that up you know in fact it was in case of sam lucha and i have to really thank the bank association here in sam lucha because the eccb did not want there to be a whole holistic moratorium but the reality is that mr speaker with tourism being impacted and the number of indirect businesses that also would have been impacted the run on the banks big banks would not have been able to handle it and i'm very happy that sam lucha played a very critical role mr speaker in influencing the eccb and agreeing to a overall moratorium and those discussions mr speaker with the this the banking association began as early as the end of february so in anticipation and that's the difference you know mr speaker there are many crises that are coming we warn the government about the crises of the supply chain issues and inflation up to today there is no policy position you're all living in denial and people in this country are paying the price for that blindness that level of arrogance of not wanting to be able to deal with the problem mr speaker that is the difficulty that i have i continue mr speaker hia on one fourth page 114 we'll see that mr speaker in 2019 there was 384 000 people or 764 000 both ways that went through hia airport in 2020 that number was down to 276 000 500 000 less people going through hia in one year mr speaker mr speaker you then go to the actual tourism arrivals which is on page 104 tourism arrivals mr speaker in 2019 was 423 000 in 2020 it was 130 000 so when you talk about a contraction the economy of 24 and you want to leave it like my good friend the psychologist a half truth i want to make it believe that there was some mismanagement of the economy and that's why all of a sudden there was a 24 decrease no mr speaker it was our dependence on tourism and our gdp had been rebased it was the first one in in the OECS to be rebased it was rebased no sir it was not rebased five times in my tenure it was rebased once once in my tenure five times in my tenure five times in my tenure i want to hear it in during 2016 to 2021 it was rebased once and when it was rebased it was rebased because they said that tourism was being under recognized in our numbers not me imf imf is the one who did the study okay so mr speaker so mr speaker we went down to 130 000 arrivals when we go down to the cruise ship arrivals mr speaker which is on page 102 we went from 1.2 million in 2019 to 454 000 in 2020 and 301 000 in 2021 a significant impact mr speaker now i want to say mr speaker that when you now go and you look at page page nine mr speaker and there's a macro economic indicators of the the debt to gdp of the countries in the region sin lucha in 2020 was 92.2 percent dominica 109 antiga 98.6 sin kits and nevis 67.9 and sin vincent and the grenadines 87.4 by 2021 mr speaker antiga had gone from 81.1 percent to 80.2 sorry antiga went from 98 percent to 95 percent dominica went from 109 to 111 percent grenada went from 72 to 71 sin lucha went from 92.1 to 90.6 sin kits went from 67.9 to 68.2 and sin vincent and the grenadines went from 87.4 to 92.4 so mr speaker you then also then look at the economic growth rates for those for those for that for that period of time and sin lucha out shown everyone in 2021 so what i'm saying mr speaker is that by time 2020 had ended and the policies that we put in place to do what which was to quickly recover tourism which we recovered 50 percent of it and focus on construction and to use the monies from the lockbox in order to be able to fund the dcf's okay all of those things created now what it created the second highest growth rate in the whole of caracom and the highest growth rate in the oecs by far last year 2021 under our policies okay so mr speaker this government now have come in and reversed all those policy positions so here it is mr speaker we're going to come here to borrow money for a six-month program of something that we have to be looking longer term for mr speaker this government has been in office almost a year and a half all the experience i see around the table they brag about all the financial gurus and social hearts that we have mr speaker you'd have thought that by now we would be cooking with gas but mr speaker all this is is a band-aid what i would have liked to have heard from both the minister of equity and also from the prime minister that this is the beginning of a program and start to lay out the policies mr speaker that they're going to be implementing to be able to sustain this on a regular basis how are we going to do it because mr speaker when we go to our social and economic review when we go to sorry i go to our when we go mr speaker to the campaign promises that we've made that's exactly what we were talking about unemployment insurance mr speaker a regular subsidy to the people who are unemployed the vulnerable persons in our society the single mothers who don't have work in order to be able to help those people we have to give them regular contributions coming out of the recurrent expenditure of our country but in order to do that mr speaker and that's where the feeling of this government comes from in order to be able to do that you have to first grow the economy and you have to be able to create a situation in which we have a surplus revenue in order to be able to do that because the fact is by running the deficit you have all you're able to do is to cover salaries pay the debt and pay the operating cost any additional things that you want to do will have to come at the expense of borrowing mr speaker and that is where this government falls apart but you know what happens mr speaker they becomes a balancing fact and that balancing fact is that it becomes a point in which you cannot borrow any more money and if you continue to run those kinds of deficits so mr speaker i continue to see that this government does not have a plan no plan mr speaker all they want to do is to lay blame to everybody else you know there was a a trough and i'm very sorry for what happened and and to hear the member from castries north try to i mean to justify what happened a person of his own experience i'm i'm shocked we're shocked i mean i would have thought that by now mr speaker he would have known that when you go and you desult early in the year and you have heavy rains all of a sudden now you're gonna have to desult to go now and want to blame what people are dumping in in the rivers that's been going on for years but if you do your desulting and then you put a program in place to prevent people from doing that that's the solution but to come here now and to justify the place being flooded the way it was mr speaker okay by blaming it on the people who are dumping things in in the thing who can probably get proper solid waste collections this is wrong mr speaker that's why we cannot go anywhere mr speaker everything is somebody else's fault everybody else's fault they never want to be able to accept the responsibilities of what's taking place you want it to be in government you're in government govern take care of the people you're coming here with band-aids this is nice mr speaker but this is not going to solve the medium term and long term problems that we have in this country but we have too many people who are living way below the level of standard of living and it is about the standard of living mr speaker and everything the united workers party has done in the past and everything we've been doing has been focused on that but in a practical way and it is this government that wants to malpally all the things that we're doing when the member when the member from castries north mr speaker tries to talk about how people want to come and say things i leave that i leave that for the labor party y'all are the best at that half truth blame game but you what can't solve anything that's why they always used to say and we can say it again labor pains that's what this country is now suffering from labor pains and where those persons who had forgotten there are many people today mr speaker who are regretting what they have done but there's more there'll be more on that that subject mr speaker so again mr speaker i want to thank the cdb for making these concessionary funds available i'm hoping that the government will use this as an opportunity to rethink retool reengage and figure out how they're going to pay for these resource these important programs out of our own recurrent revenue and i'll give them a little bit of a hint mr speaker it can only come when you generate higher revenues than what your operating costs are that's how you start to grow the economy but the reality is is that they themselves don't know what to believe in so anybody who comes in and tells them some story that's what they're going to follow and that's exactly what we're seeing going on today mr speaker in this country i thank you very much member of a castry central i wouldn't know me at all but i have to show up no no i would just give a few of a couple cups yeah we all in the room already mr speaker it was never my intention to speak on this resolution because generally i tend to believe mr speaker that when a resolution is settled in this august chamber a resolution that brings relief to the people of this country and in this instance thousand people there would be very little room for the bees but you see mr speaker when you hear utterances that carry not a writer of truth clearly intended to sensationalize and deceive the compunction that saves me and the need to respond becomes an obligation mr speaker i just i juxtapose what the leader of the opposition and member for miku north miku south sorry said in his contribution today alongside the untruths that he spews on social media under his name and you wonder whether the member for miku south remembers anything or suffers from selective amnesia the audacity of this individual mr speaker had him posting on social media a huge a fat a humongous a grandiose a too heavy to carry lying just like mr speaker he keeps on lying and deceiving the people wanting them to believe that this government sold the pot he actually posted repeated and said on a multiplicity of occasions that we as a government sold the pot clearly mr speaker this was a deceitful statement intended to cause sensationalism it is more than dishonest it has put it mildly it basically speaks to someone mr speaker who lacks the ability to retain even his own name so sometimes when he speaks he qualifies it by saying the truth is what you believe it to be anything he says and he believes it it is the truth so in his head and his head alone we the accusation of we selling the pots is true only to to him mr speaker another another utterance that he made and he's doing all of this mr speaker in an attempt to assist him in keeping afloat he's sinking leadership boat but there are two sailors on that boat called Andy and Aussie and those sailors will ensure that that boat sinks the christians so that leadership boat is down to submerged mr speaker you will not believe that again on social media another lie the first one is we sold the pots i suspect you were born on all liars day they have all fools there i don't know why i think i'll ask the member of the country sorry sorry i have given you great liberty but consistently referring to a member of the house as a liar is on parliamentary i think you can use another word to say exactly what you want to say the untruth teller okay mr speaker what do you know mr speaker that's one of the arguments i always get myself involved in that if a member is being factual and can't substantiate whatever he assumes and it is and repollin i had that discussion i remember one time he said even if he knows and he was referring to the leader of the opposition was then prime minister even if he knows and he can decipher the lies that he told um you know in his mind this man ought not lie so he'll use some other words anyhow i am guided mr speaker but mr speaker another untruth is that he posted today's borrowings would bring our borrowings as a government in excess of half a billion dollars yes he did he posted it under his name on social media and what is worse than mr speaker their persons who are supposedly intelligent they take this and they run with it expecting their leader to be telling them the truth they came down on this government for the allegation of selling the ports which is an untruth they are going all over they even said there is no longer maddie is maddie that is how far they have gone mr speaker in response to a false allegation that our borrowings today will bring us in excess of half a billion dollars you know a leader a leader your leadership boat is sinking and you are seeking to cause sensationalism by having the few noisemakers latched on to you the other birthday party i counted 12 he wasn't even there a leader who had promised to have 15 000 people converge on the square okay mr speaker i passed them in a surreptitious week for microsoft clarification clarification are you yielding are you yielding member of the castry center no i wouldn't yield this clarification no it is a point of order yes his clarification is called for further confusion mr speaker the leader of your position said he will have 15 000 people congregate on the derrick walker square but guess what he didn't even know he did not even know whether demonstration was he disembarked on the vigil field by which time the vehicle left he had to walk from the vigil field to the square so he didn't even know and i rather suspect he didn't know when the party for him was the mr speaker on a very serious note mr speaker you cannot as a leader as an ex prime minister be feeding your people your fault with so many untruths not one or two many we sold the ports mr speaker this government to fund the 2022 2023 budget is yet to borrow one penny that let me repeat to finance this year's budget that run from the first of April 2022 to back 34 2023 we have borrowed not one penny not i did not say that within the confines of the budget an intention to borrow was not expressed i'm not saying that i'm not saying that i am saying today since the passage of the budget we are yet to borrow one penny but eventually we will have to because the budget has to be financed but for this individual mr speaker to tell his people that this will take us to over half a billion dollars is a blatant untruth you see mr speaker this leader of the opposition ex prime minister member to microsoft has the record for borrowing and we can check the records it will prove it he has the record of borrowing the most money borrowed by any government in wanton was under the leader of the and that can be substantiated mr speaker mr speaker you know i sit and i listen to the leader of the opposition and sometimes i'm wondering why am i in politics you know why if i want to be in politics and deceive as much as the leader of the opposition and tell so many untruths and be such a hypocrite i don't want to be in politics mr speaker whilst the leader of the opposition sat right here in that city another post of is that today we are creating new jobs for the boys by making room for the appointment of a deputy speaker can you imagine mr speaker in five years you have this chamber functioning without a deputy speaker in five years you met a mockery of the constitution when you were interrogated you said that the constitution says when it's convenient to me five years later it wasn't convenient we are seeking to kill an effect we are seeking to bring normality because you know the constitution envisaged that there would have been honorable men and women who have to ensure that the stipulations within the constitution are ahead too that's correct before he was born but here came the leader of the opposition into the political periphery and all recruits mr speaker totally disregarded the constitution and not only in that regard he started off his dinner the constitution clearly says that there shall be a sitting of parliament within 30 days after the general election he disregarded that when interviewed you know what he said mr speaker the constitution imposes no sanctions you know taking our most supreme law for party show mr speaker and then want to come and pose yourself as some kind of authoritarian holding moral high ground where where so you disrespected it by by having parliament beyond the 30 days you've done it disrespected it by not appointing a deputy speaker and guess what mr speaker you know why he did not appoint a deputy speaker because he wanted to make room for the largest cabinet in the history of st lusia he had the largest cabinet in the history of st lusia so the deputy speaker that position as mandated by the constitution was sacrificed as he relied on the in as is on his own interpretation of as far as or when it's convenient and here we are here we are attempting to ensure that when this honorable men enter the honorable chamber they are obligated to comply with the stipulations of the law so we are seeking to amend this constitution to ensure that the prime minister's hands are relieved i will get there you know but it is the seat in the same thing i'm talking about you open the door you open it yes you sat here and posted that and you know the worst thing guess who's talking about we're looking for a job for friend family and foreigners i could not believe the man is put in fff i could not believe it yes but you know what mr speaker when we get there i will i will um i will ensure that i have a copy of the post i'm making the document of the house you know mr speaker that is the kind of hypocrisy i don't like you took advantage of a situation there's clearly a loophole you took advantage of it in fact i will ask us to amend the constitution as well to say anytime a man becomes prime minister and he fails to call to convene parliament within 30 days he shall be liable to six-month imprisonment so you will not say there are no sanctions it is sadly it is people like you who disregard our law who disregard our constitution that calls us to be a constitutional dilemma headed for the court taking years and years to resolve and if you don't know there is also convention how has it been done before in the absence of my own interpretation and that's the first time again in the history of this country that for five years we didn't have a deputy speaker now mr speaker i hold another thing again ah we did not we did not work pay liad workers because we will try to fix the corner you know yes you did majestic alley at whichever which one did you see which one majestic okay i stand corrected by my very good friend who seldom remembers the truth he said mr speaker that we did not pay the majestic workers because we were trying to fix the corner i want to talk about it yet first mr speaker i was in a cabinet of ministers with the leader of the opposition the leader of the opposition was then minister of tourism you remember i know you know them much you remember you said and they are ten minutes off there isn't you would be 13 hotels you remember that with me 30 hotels but mr speaker as minister of tourism you get millions and millions of words to american airline you get millions to foreign say like to foreign airlines say like and you open your mouth and you said you will not assist me at mr speaker the allocation to ministry of tourism which was supposed to have been used to promote st. lusia's destination was being used to make the nation to foreign airlines except lia what are you giving them a money for donation what are they american was coming here with empty seats because guess what the minister of tourism had already paid for the vacant seats that is a fact i remember one year mr mr speaker the allocation to the ministry of tourism was 50 million dollars it was increased to where mr speaker speak from a standpoint of knowledge 50 million dollars because person's world of view there is a tourism guru at the helm but it turned out to be a tourism because boxing in paradise took so much out of our money sbcf contracts donations to airlines nothing to promote the better good of this country you know your food and run festival you know my ex prime minister has reminded me he was the one who made the allocations you know and today you have the audacity the goal to come into this one with the house the ex prime minister said he thought the member was a tourism guru and those are fast mr speaker those are fast oh apple i'm not listening to him again you are minister of tourism is the same way is the same way you are minister of tourism they give you to run the tourism ministry you're bringing apple to help you work it is the same way you are minister of finance we are never in the history of this country pay anybody any money to help us do our budgets our loyal civil servants always came to the call but no unsung young unsung young get unsung old now money they have so you know and you know mr speaker when he was questioned he said hey i mean didn't even take one percent of the budget you moving a budget of one point eight billion dollars one percent is eighteen million you have the audacity to even tell us how much it it costs you so john never did that kenya and tony never did that philip jeb yeah never did that there was no ex prime minister whether did that the loyal civil servants were there but for the first three years he had no faith in them he sidelined them he disregarded them and guess what mr speaker when things got rough and there was no more money in the government coffers he reverted to them he reverted to them and today want to come in this chamber and pretend you have all the answers which answers which answers which answers you have in 2016 our economy was the best performing economy in the ocs the best you left it at the worst you know in 2016 mr speaker we were paying 32 million dollars in rent when he left it in 2021 our rental bill had gone up to 72 million a year he almost doubling it or more than doubling it more than doubling it i'm coming to orange grove the headad mr speaker and it's a fact that he he rented five offices from his father so part of the increase went to pay the rent to his own father no it's not an it's not conflict of interest it's not corruption it's not unethical in his eyes you know and then want to come here and then want to come here and pretend you know everything mr speaker you know what is funny how it is funny mr speaker the leader of the opposition never entertained liad workers and mind you they were both flabbo and labor in liad he never entertained the majestic workers they were both labor and flabbo in in in in in majestic but to appease them to play on the conscience he said i congratulate the government for paying them so that out there in their minds boss know how people knew he could have done it you know he could have done it mr speaker but he didn't do it and guess his excuse we were busy fixing the economy how you were fixing the economy when you take 7.3 million dollars and gave to a man who does business if you're brother-in-law that's how you were fixing the economy and you know i'm coming the man gives us but part of our 7.3 million dollars the leader of the opposition had the audacity to go on television and to tell the people of this country they they are happy they got part of the money back i saved that clip for election i don't know if you'll be there though because i don't know if andy and orsey will do what they have to do member of a castry central yes i'm straining to try to stop you okay but i recognize that the member for microsoft inserted in his debate the ministerial statement that he put the door jar and unfortunately i've just kicked it down but i really am trying to stop you i just can't okay very well mr speaker very well that's why i said i actually sound don't open the door and the door shall be open he brought it in he was busy fixing the economy 7.3 million dollars for vaccines and lied to us told us about truth well mr speaker told us about truth by saying barbarians paid money as well barbarians did not pay one penny not one penny so far we have been refunded i don't know if it's dead mr the prime minister beg them money for our money back beg the man for our money back because the prime minister is in desperate need of money the man sent us 2.7 he has 4.6 left for us on behalf of the government and people of st lusia i am asking the member for microsoft to make an assiduous effort to retrieve the money that came from our conference and for which we have received no value please that's how you were fixing the economy when you fix in the economy by giving rock over 32 million dollars to tell us where to plant grass that's how you fix the economy when you fix the economy when sandals collected 24 million dollars on our behalf and you have to keep it that's how you fix the economy when you fix the economy when you get yes it's our land that a dollar an acre for 99 years that's how you fix in the economy you spent 11 million dollars on a bypass road but you are okay that's how you fix in the economy 15 million sent you would change there is no lockbox there's a lost box sent you the foundation was estimated at 3 million a bit of 9 million came in came through that's how you were fixing the economy 12 million dollars to perform and do 12 million to tell us what our locals have told us all the time fixing the economy man which economy which economy there's a blue economy there and there's a real economy state which one will you what economy when you fix in here give us a job within two weeks signing an agreement given the usage right to sell our path forward and the proceeds can remain in a foreign bank to which we have no access that's how you fix in the economy man you you demolish up to now we don't have a prisoner holding facility i built it i built it look a little bit you probably would never the member for me would not subscribe minister i was minister of physical development i built it you demolish the devil cash is not sorry you demolished it today we have to find money to build another prisoner holding facility that's how you will fix in the economy seven million you know that's how you're fixing you're breaking the economy you're mashing it up that's what you were doing talk about fixing going to choir hotel government is not a hotelier you are a hotelier when you want compared to a choir caribbean jewels and then i've been best to pick with over 50 million dollars in register debt that's a fact that is a fact that's not a fact oh but the shock lens is red and remember for soselle saltibus this speaker i i looked at the middle of the opposition because i thought he would have the the land was not compulsory acquired was it caribbean jewels the land was purchased by investment lucha it was it was in a receivership that is not correct i'm a member for soselle if you are if you don't know something for fact don't see i remember for liquid salt point of order on clarification clarification no i'm not accepting any clarification point of order that is a point of order yeah so you make the speaker the same method that was used for the lands in the south in view four when we had all these lands that were in receivership missus were there because of the icelandic bank and he knows well he's a lawyer but you have two options you can buy the company but if you buy the company missus you don't know what liabilities you're buying into the company so the mechanism that was used was we agreed with the receiver on how much the mouth is going to be paid and we compulsory acquired the land in order to not have to take over the company but that's exactly what they said no it's not what you said remember for microsoft are you agreeing with him that the purpose of what he is suggesting is that we just acquired we did not be acquired in in agreement with the receivers but he never disputed how he merely said that it was compulsory acquired that that's what we agreed with him procedure that's all i said you know mr speaker it's a fact you compulsorily acquired a hotel when government is not a hotelier and the proceeds of the acquisition must be passed on to private entities those of it and then you talk about fixing the economy fixing what mr speaker i'm coming to one of you there was a company that says it can train people they stayed at cocopam they stayed at cocopam and the government and people of st lucer funded the training of cabinet ministers by that very agency dr bat they train you the man the man our representative our ambassador to england at the time ambassador mares even flew down to be trained by dr bat at cocopam and the bill was filtered by the taxpayers of this country you were fixing the economy you were fixing the economy you know mr speaker under the stewardship of the member for microsoft we acquired the orange grove hotel no castries north sorry under his stewardship it was something i was never in agreement with but it went through we spent in excess of 50 million dollars cumulatively on that hotel yes on on the building sorry on the mall orange grove mall you see that hotel ding don't stick in my mind i really miss it orange grove plaza we spent in excess of 50 million dollars on that plaza here paying 250 2 000 a month in interest but here comes the member from microsoft prime minister then sells it for 5 million us which is 13.5 million ec and in the deed within the confines of the deed enters into an agreement that would guarantee the purchaser cumulatively 52 million dollars mr speaker on the point of order members misleading the house again the acquisition of the of the sale of the orange grove was only for the ground floor the government owns the second and third floor and government sold the ground floor so the entire building was valued at 30 million ec and that's what it was sold for the 10 million us dollars so five million to the ground floor five million upstairs and the the developers agreed to now to go in and fix the remaining of the building of which government will pay a rent of four dollars so i would certainly like to hear from the member particularly from the member the minister of finance whether in fact that he's now examined the deal but in fact he thinks it's a bad deal the reality is government didn't have to put any cash out and we're going to be able to take a piece of land that has been undeveloped for so many years and been is now going to come and make a meaningful contribution to our economy at this time with with very little exposure by our government in fact the rental the average rent we're paying now in the system is in excess of five dollars this is going to be for four dollars so i certainly would like to correct the member maybe he didn't read the fine detail of the to understand that element of it member castry central the member for me who saw the said the building was not sold it was the ground for the ground for mr speaker i know you are one who knows a lot mr speaker to sell any part of a building now it must be sold in accordance with the condominium act there is a deal of sale of the property registered from the government of st lucha from amazon properties a company owned by the government of st lucha to whoever there is a registered deal of sale what it is within that deal it says that the government undertakes and i remember the square footage 78406 square feet at four dollars a square foot that's going to write good how much is that monthly i don't know you just told us is that four dollars four dollars a square foot mr speaker with one and three quarter acres of land yeah for yes the first business year 43 thousand almost two two acres you are you sold the property you are turning back you are turning back and rent two floors if you sold the ground for a while to parent you sold the property turned back rent almost 80 000 square feet at four dollars a square foot which is almost three two hundred or two hundred and three hundred and twenty thousand dollars a month ten sir allen chastney felice please see me see ten sir new ten year building like we orange group new day pass a whole secret million dollar hey come to me miss allen chastney funny for 12 million 12 six million dollar 13 and a half And that is how you fix the economy, we sold the ground floor, that's a new one. Because you know what? You have given me four. I will get the deed. I will make the deed public, I promise you. I will make the deed public. You sold the ground floor. There is a... It's not... Anyway. The S.H.U.S. Public here, you call it a fake. But Mr. Speaker, that is the kind of leadership we had in this country. That is the kind of leadership we had in this country. And you know what Mr. Speaker? Our Prime Minister has a philosophy. You never blame the recipient of a sweet deal. Blame the person who on governments behalf gave that other person such a sweet deal. If the United Wilkins Party had come to me now, and had asked me for $13.5 million, I don't have it though, but I would even sell my underwear to take advantage of the deal that was given on Orange Grove. Because $13.5 million and guaranteed $370,000 a month for 16 years. What more do you need? The bank wouldn't even want to deposit. That is how sweet the deal is Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, point of order. Members misleading the House. The end of the day, the $4 represents a significant decrease in the chance of rent the government pays. This is not the additional rent. I'm hoping that the government will take advantage of the rent and the building that is being built there, and transfer other places that are being built. Remember where did he refer to a reduction or increase in rent? He's not, but he's... He's saying that we have paid X dollars and we have spending Y. Suggesting Mr. Speaker. That's why he said he's misleading the House. I didn't get that impression. On top of it, I'm saying this is to substitute. That was the intention. No, no, no. That's why it's four dollars a square foot. The government is now paying $7.5 million. Members of the Microsoft, I had no insertion of any suggestion. I had a direct statement that X dollars was sold for X dollars, even though we bought it for Y. And thereafter, we are renting a certain amount that will cost us over a 16-year period, more than $30 million. I never heard anything about increase or decrease in rental. Mr. Speaker, if the member is saying that it's going to be $300,000 a month in additional rent, did you hear him say that, Mr. Speaker? No, he didn't use the word additional. He just said it was $300,000 rent. So am I not to imply that there's going to be an increase in rent of $300,000 a month? Well, you're free to imply what you want. But can I take it? Can I take it? You can take it how you want. The Speaker didn't take it that way, and that is what matters. Can I get your clarification? My clarification is that all I heard the member of the Ministry Central say was, whilst he was minister, they bought a building and spent nearly $50 million overall on that building. That building was then sold for $13.5 million. You have attempted to clarify it was only the ground floor. That's in the air. Out of that $13.5 million, you are renting, you have agreed to rent over 70,000 square feet at $4, which comes to $300,000 a month. That's all he said. Okay, Mr. Speaker. In that same vein, because if I say he has land there, which is a fact, and if I said he has signed it yesterday, which is a fact, he will say I'm implying that because he has land there, he signed it yesterday. And he has been caught for that. He has been caught for that. I said, I was a member of his family, the director of the family, which is a fact. He has been caught for that. So you understand- Remember, you can't litigate what's in court here, right? Very well, Mr. Speaker. But it is along those same lines. I spoke factually, I spoke factually that we bought a building, spent cumulatively in excess of $50 million on the building. He turned around, sold the building for $13.5 million, and in the same agreement in the deed which I had yesterday, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, as I said, I really didn't come prepared to make a contribution. I didn't, because I never envisaged that my friend would have opened the door. You know? And, Mr. Speaker, we sold it, he sold it $13.5 million, and guarantees the purchaser in excess of $52 million over the 16-year period. And it's easy to calculate. He has just admitted that he rented a great to rent 78,000 square feet at four dollars a square foot that's almost 320,000 by 12. That's about 4 million a year, 16 years. 16 years. 16 years. And that is how you tell me. You stand in this house before the people of this country and tell us you are fixing the economy. And again, in a floodplain, you know, Mr. Speaker, in a floodplain, Mr. Speaker, just imagine, in the agreement, and I told my colleagues that yesterday, we were supposed to have that delivery of the building by a certain date. That day that's passed, the court was supposed to have moved there, in accordance with the agreement he signed. Today, Mr. Speaker, we still continue to pay $40,000 a month to house the court where it currently is, because the completion that has passed and we have been given new building. And then, Mr. Speaker, you hear, I was busy fixing the economy. Mr. Speaker, I want to say I will save the best for last and I will await the member to speak on another resolution that we have there. I didn't intend to make any contribution, as I said, but Mr. Speaker, like I said, when the door is opened, you enter and I cannot sit idly by and hear the member from Miku South spewing so many untruths, which if left on challenge, would have gone down the annals of belief. I thank you, Mr. Speaker. Member of the Cassidy Central, Member of the Cassidy Central, you would be aware that having relied so extensively, on that lease, you are obliged to make it a documented house. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can do so almost later today. We are in possession of the documents, Mr. Speaker. Okay, no problem, Mr. Speaker. The lease of him for the 70,000, Mr. Speaker. The member for Viewfort North, I want you to... Yes, I want to put him. My jailong. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker, and good afternoon to colleague parliamentarians. I wish Mr. Speaker, before I continue, to speak on this resolution, which seeks to get the authority from Parliament for the Minister of Finance for finance to borrow 5,217,000 dollars from the special funds, resources of the bank to finance safety nets for vulnerable persons affected by COVID-19. Before I make my brief contribution, Mr. Speaker, I want to join other colleagues and to express condolences to the family of the young nurse who met her demise in a very tragic way earlier today. I wish to express my profound sadness not only to the family, but to the other nurses and especially to the staff of the Millennium Heights Medical Complex and all other health institutions. I've been told, Mr. Speaker, that she was well-loved and her family is in deep grief. I also wish, Mr. Speaker, to take this opportunity to wish all musicians a happy feast of musicians in the constituency of V4North, where I confirm we have a rich tradition of musicians and families of musicians. And there are so many of them, Mr. Speaker, I wish all of them well. And I'm hoping that today they will relax and spend some good time with their families and with members of the community. Mr. Speaker, the impacts of COVID-19 on St. Lucia and the Caribbean are well-known in some quarters and in other quarters, Mr. Speaker, we are still counting or trying to assess the impacts of COVID-19. I want to spend just a few minutes to speak to this resolution, Mr. Speaker, but I wish to borrow from the work of Lilia Buen-Queik, who is the World Bank's Country Director for Caribbean countries. And she has this discussion which she offered in August of this year on the COVID-19, its impacts, and how, Mr. Speaker, we should be thinking of strengthening social protection systems and rethinking social protection systems, especially in light of the impacts of COVID-19. She offers a few suggestions and I want to use her arguments, Mr. Speaker, as a basis for my discussion today. Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has on the mind food security on a global scale. I think it's important to remind members and the general public that the impacts of COVID-19, the negative impacts of COVID-19, some of them are health related, unfortunately, death all over the Caribbean and the world, but the impacts have been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. And just to mention, Mr. Speaker, this year, the World Food Program estimates 40% or 2.8 million people in the English-speaking Caribbean will struggle to access adequate food and remain food secure. It's important to note, Mr. Speaker, that in addition to COVID-19, 30% of global wheat imports and almost 20% of corn exports, more than 50% of the sunflower oil supplied globally are in problems. Exports have stalled. Food prices are on the rise. I think it's very important for our people to understand, for our constituents to understand that all of these things will cause the impacts of COVID-19 to be even more severe. We are seeing reports of food prices going up. And we have also seen, Mr. Speaker, the highest levels in terms of fuel prices since 2008. Why are all these things important in this discussion? These things are important because people in our communities and our constituencies are under pressure. They are under pressure because COVID-19 wrecks havoc on our social infrastructure. COVID-19 destroyed many families. Some of the breadwinners of the families have desist, unfortunately. And some people continue to suffer. So there is an urgent need according to Lilia Buenuik for us to look at social protection systems and to buffer our economies to protect the vulnerable. Mr. Speaker, the crisis is compounded by the fiscal strain on the governments. You heard a while ago the leader of the opposition chastising these governments and indicating that we promise to give people things that they are not given to them. I was pleasantly not surprised, but I was very happy when the Member for Casteries Central went into the history of the management of this economy by the Member for Miku South. And I was happy when he mentioned the record which the Member for Miku South got in 2016. The healthy economy and the rebound. The reduction of the fiscal deficit to 3.1% I believe moving from almost 9% when the Member for New Ford South came into government. And how he squandered that is the Member for Miku South. How he squandered this wonderful opportunity by going on a frolic of his own a frolic in his own mind Mr. Speaker to enter into all kinds of deals and his answer to economic growth is revenues. Revenues that as long as you have revenues you have economic growth. Today is not the day for a discussion on economics Mr. Speaker but clearly his strategy did not work and we are in a lot of problems exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. The World Bank suggests a few things and I listened to my colleague the Member for Kastri South East this morning and I was very comforted by the fact that a number of suggestions by the World Bank Mr. Speaker I heard him speak about how the professionals in his ministry are working towards these conversations. The first is for us to update our poverty data and targeting mechanisms. I know for example Mr. Speaker that we are encouraging our professionals to focus on the data get the data right I know we are encouraging community groups to get involved. The World Bank also indicates that we should implement economic inclusion programs and when you look at the work of this government the department of commerce when you look at what is happening with our programs and in a while the loan for small businesses is coming you will understand Mr. Speaker that this government is focused on implementing economic inclusion programs. The World Bank suggests also that we modernize the social protection system and increase institutional capacity. I heard the minister speak about PAP and he is very fond of discussing PAP the public assistance program we need to modernize that we know Mr. Speaker that in the last the last time last government we know the kinds of havoc that was wrecked on the public assistance program and we are still trying to understand how certain people found themselves there and how we can use a modern tool and a fair tool to get help to those people who really need help. There are a number of people in my constituency Mr. Speaker who should be in this program and as to why they are not in this program I don't know. So I am very pleased that the minister and his ministry are trying to rectify this problem trying to improve the public assistance program and the World Bank also suggests that we strengthen social insurance and labour market programs and work is ongoing with the help of the World Bank in San Lucia and OECS to do this. So we need to strengthen the grassroots level involvement in this public assistance strategies and to reimagine social protection. But Mr. Speaker our government has demonstrated that we are a progressive government. A government which has implemented in its short stint so far a number of policies to assist people in social protection. As we know social protection policy progressive social protection policy is really an investment. The people have evidence of our actions Mr. Speaker look at in the post-COVID era although we still have COVID-19 we can begin to think about developing post-COVID era we have serious issues to consider still. Our government is considering those issues and you the people are in the mind of our government. Look for example we know Mr. Speaker that although COVID-19 infections are going down we know a number of people who get COVID-19 we are recovering that many people who are infected with COVID-19 seem to have complications which may affect the future productive lives. And that's a very serious problem. We in the Department of Health Wellness and Elderly Affairs we are looking at this problem and we are beginning to speak we are speaking with car for power and other agencies to find out how serious this is why people are recovering from COVID-19 people are reporting all kinds of pains and aches and things that they never had before and they are now going to certain doctors more regularly. They are seeing specialists for ailments that they never had before so this is something we have to consider when we look at social protection it means Mr. Speaker that some people even though they got COVID and they have recovered it looks as if we may have another crisis down the road and it's a looming crisis of long COVID and people who do not understand yet what's happening to them after they have contracted COVID and recovered. So social protection we need to go down that road too and begin to look at how will that affect the workplace and how will it affect our productive capacity here. It requires for us to be guided by the evidence changing nature of work for example since COVID-19 a lot of workplaces have changed the operations and how does that impact social protection. The labour market programs Mr. Speaker look at what this government has done access to tourism through community tourism activities. The youth economy and the opportunities that can be found there. Very soon access to funding by the youth will come through the youth economy look at education look at what this government has done and if we are talking about social protection we are talking about parents who got impacted by COVID-19 and the government came in and said we know you are impacted by COVID-19 little by little let me take off some pressure of you. So we went and we paid the facilities fees we paid the CXC fees we negotiated the flow and there is the flow bundle of individuals are being connected right now as we speak so when we speak of social protection when we speak of a government with a conscience with a focus on protecting individuals in the communities our government is there for you the people our government is focused on that. Mr. Speaker access to information technology where a parent would have to probably get close to a thousand dollars to purchase a laptop our government is ensuring that the parents, you the parents get some protection and to ease off the burden from you a bit. And when we speak of micro-businesses in a while we will hear a debate on the loans for micro-businesses more opportunities for social protection because the World Bank and all the experts are saying yes we have to give transfers and we have to help people out the best form of social protection in the long run is to ensure that you graduate these people and you give them skills so that at the end of the day they can survive on their own and they can create even better opportunities for other people through employment so Mr. Speaker I support this loan I want Mr. Speaker to come here to pay the money but we don't even have to pay Mr. Speaker so we came here to talk about how we can help the people in the country who will be elected the most important people with MAM, Parliament Kastriz, South East Ediki, Lelania, Hurrican Kailasa, Kwaze, Shimea even if we don't have a contractor we don't have to pay the money we have we don't have to pay the money so the people in the country who will be elected the people in the country who will be affected by Covid-19 because of Covid-19 it is very difficult but also Mr. Speaker who will be affected by Covid-19 because of Covid-19 because of Covid-19 because of Covid-19 because of Covid-19 because of Covid-19 Mr. Speaker how we can help the people in Ukraine who will be able to go and export the money we are not going to do this with the money the money we have it can be used for supermarket I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm this initiative is a commendable initiative and the government deserves being commended for this initiative by reducing this initiative. And I accept that the initiative has been very carefully thought out. I am willing these matters as well as the speaker that there are limitations and there are so many limitations some of which should be addressed by members. I think I just heard a member for the North for example pointing out the debilitating consequences and effects of COVID and others the limitations of finance resources and so on. But perhaps one of the greatest limitations has to do with the thinking of the agencies that we have to deal with. As in this case for example the Caribbean Development Bank offered that matter to the World Bank because they have a very strange notions of social assistance, social support, social rehabilitation and it's never ever easy to have to cope with these agencies and their very bureaucratic approaches to dealing with real problems or the problems of ordinary people. They are in fact exceedingly journalist in their views and the burden that we have to carry is the burden of technocrats the way they think, the way they reason, the way they deal with issues and sometimes a very difficult responsibility is cast on governments to maneuver themselves for that means to get the support that countries need, governments need and persons need. So it's a limitation and I don't think we should be shy to talk about from time to time it's a limitation that we I mean should address because it applies to all governments which ever the government that is in office or in power. Mr. Speaker the minister for equity helpfully clarified the heads on the which assistance will go to the people of the country and I think we have been told that some 8,000 persons overall will benefit. He explained carefully explained cash transfers and what they would mean I think he indicated for example some 766,000 US dollars will go to public assistance. I was particularly pleased that the member indicated that persons with disabilities would be targeted. That again is commendable and I believe he pointed out that grants are currently $200 per month and that will increase to a payment of $400 for six months. Now again I spoke of the limitations that governments have to work with and all throughout his presentation the Honourable Member made the point that this is assistance for specific period of time six months being touted constantly so six months really is not much time to play with but then we have to be reminded of the share cost because this is going to cost overall nearly 14 million dollars in six months so again sometimes you can have all cake and eat it but I was pleased by the increase in disability grants for different reasons the first of course is that this was a grant that the former government introduced when I had the Honour to serve the country as Prime Minister and I recall that at the last budget sitting of that government before general elections we had increased the allocation the monthly allocation from $200 a month I believe either to 275 or 250 because we are always acutely aware that $200 for the parents of challenged children disabled children really in this day and age is no money at all with inflation at the current rate so mr. Speaker this is really a drop in a bucket but again we have to get some small muscles but I say this mr. Speaker to make the point to really deal with the thinking of the former UWP administration and we heard so much from the leader of the opposition because you know when you're reaching out to touch individuals like that people with disability people are challenged you give them a grant for tokenism to recognize that there's a problem there's an issue but what did they do one of the first things they did was to actually remove the increase that had been introduced by the former government and tip brought it back down to $200 and you sit there and you listen you listen and I'm not going to repeat what the member of a country central has said because I think is the response was admirable in all the circumstances and I think he's quite right there's so much that he did not touch dealing with the management of the economy in that between that period 2016 and 2021 the fundamental reality is that if you had an economy who suffered a debt to GDP with reduction of some 2426 percent and we need to confirm what the exact figure is because we keep on airing is 2426 percent the fact of the matter is that no government should be taking credit when there is a rebound because any economy that has suffered are such a severe loss of GDP because of particular situation once that situation is remedied that economy is bound to recover I mean that's an iron law I mean you look at Grenada for example when Grenada was damaged by that hurricane the fact of an incoming government is to an incoming government's responsibility is to know that recovery well aware it will come and this is what this current government has been doing to miss this recovery to not continue to not a discovery I'd be that it is on a natural path of recovery but to do nothing that will cause any danger or any arm to allow that recovery to continue to take place and and to grow and develop and this is what's happening so when the members from me go south of me go south attempt to claim credit for this rebound in the economy I mean he's really clutching straws because that's absolutely nothing to do with the former government at all if anything that we are in has been due to the recklessness of that government and as I said a member for castry central spoke about it earlier on mr. Speaker I saw a recent statement in war by original newspapers regarding the deliberations of the executive board of the IMF on the solution economy following the article for consultation of our economy and the executive board commented on the fact that st. Lucia has been severely affected by covid in fact it let off that discussion on that basis and after speaking of the severe impact on covid then proceeded to address other issues like the impact of the war in Ukraine and it is interesting the choice of language severely impacted and I want to spend a few minutes to dwell I guess mr. Speaker my point of departure and I want now to link up to the comments I made about the Caribbean development bank is this that when banks and institutions are seeking to develop programs to assist countries to recover from debilitating economic events there's a responsibility to really look at real problems what are the real problems of people that needs to be addressed and that's my issue that there is a reluctance to really look at these very real problems and see whether programs could be devised to deal with those problems our bureaucrats are all guilty because a lot of them basically they believe in the theology of the world bang and so they're just as guilty because they have not really they have not really adjusted their economic thinking in that regard because they see things in very narrow prisms of dollars and cents mr. Speaker I was hoping that I might have heard from the minister how we can reach out to some of our people who for example cannot pay the utility bills I don't know what is the experience of honorable members but I can tell you mr. Speaker I have a monumental problem in my constituency I am bombarded with requests to pay for water bills and to pay for what electricity bills why because Lucille has come back with a vengeance you don't pay they disconnect you what scores followed suit of vengeance you don't pay they disconnect you the reality of this situation mr. Speaker is that during COVID quite rightly these agencies decided not to disconnect persons to allow them to continue to use water and it was responsible of these agencies to do those things we all knew that we were in this together all of us had to suffer collectively and of course have names spoken about a bank because you know I have in the past spoken repeatedly about issues of banking and how it affected his life in other words mr. Speaker a lot of all as this program is as the minister explained and as a minister of finance as explained but I still sense that the program is really not touching some of the fundamental issues that ordinary solutions have to face on a daily basis particularly with respect to those two entities Lucille and of course my question is this we are talking of very poor people and I have seen some extraordinary bills $4,000 for water $3,000 for $5,000 for electricity and I accept mr. Speaker that no government can ever take responsibility for going to pay people water bills with them or pay electricity bills I would not support that I would not support and as much as I happened to have happened to have had the honor of leading a government that had a responsibility to the poor and leading a government that sought to change the lives of persons and leading a government that reached to touch the lives of poor people by the institutions that they created whether it's for the poverty reduction fund that became the SSDF and you know or whether it is the electrification program of the country whatever it is whether it was the elderly home care program that we are repeating there well it's all those things that was the nerves of that government so there's no question about that but at the same time we do have to be very careful of embedding this dependency syndrome into society where people feel that the it is a government's responsibility to pay for everything every living thing I mean I'm still astonished when I help people see seem to want to argue that the government has not moved to touch their lives and the member for view for north the development examples whether it is the laptop program or whether it is the program to pay CXC fees although I might have had a different approach in respect of CXC fees but that's besides the point offer that matter facilities fees these are real programs that touch people in need so there can be no question about the legacy the thinking and the approach of the government all that I'm saying is that there are some areas where I think that our people have very real problems that have that needs to be considered now this is bigger I have made the point that I don't think you can go and pay out people's electricity bills for them offer that matter go and pay their water bills the government just doesn't have the ability or capacity to do it and whether number for Miku South accepts it or not the greatest the disaster that occurred in this country is not just COVID you know but it is his management of the economy between 2021 no no it's not an accident that's a lucha has suffered a debt sorry GDP reduction of 24% or 26% that's not an accident it happened it was exacerbated because of those policies and Tiga has a tourism dependent economy didn't suffer to the same degree that St. Lucia did those policies had to create the situation that we are in and we have found themselves in so Mr. Speaker we need to to to to be clear what we are dealing with and what has to be done for the future but to return to this issue Mr. Speaker as I said before I do not believe that any government should do a lot of money or just ask what is the bill that people all that sort of paid also like what is the bill that's been paid and just do a lot of money government don't have the capacity can do it but on the other hand I believe that the responsible ministers need to sit with these agencies and say listen we have to structure an approach to enable those people to meet their commitments to you we have to find an approach and it's unfair that person have to be routinely disconnected on all fronts whether it's electricity and water and they don't have the capacity because the reality is that the vast majority of these persons continue to be unemployed for reasons that we know in other words what I'm saying Mr. Speaker is that we require interventions discussions with these agencies to say listen this is not the way you can we are not going to wipe away those debts we can't pay for those debts but we need a more sustainable approach you know what parliamentarians are left with Mr. Speaker I either have to take the money I get as a back manager sometimes and help out or I have to end up calling Lucilleck and plead with the person at the end of the line who is responsible for unpaid accounts and seek to negotiate and invariably negotiation requires you to pay down a certain sum of money before the person can be reconnected and in my experience in the vast majority of cases those persons on fall again and low and behold the car pay and they're disconnected one more time this time in perpetuity and they're back on your doorstep so some more persuasion has to be applied and I really want to urge that the responsible ministers and gauge those agencies in discussions to see what adjustments can be made for example if your three thousand dollars is on paid electricity bill why would you tell a person do we have to pay down six hundred dollars or eight hundred dollars and then you have to pay three hundred dollars a month when you know the person's can do it so I call for these kinds of interventions as I call for such interventions for example with government agencies that are old money for example by tenants and they refuse to understand that they have to make adjustments to allow those persons to recover the recovery from COVID is not going to occur overnight it will take time just as a government economy just the management of the economy will require a lot of dexterity a lot of skill a lot of patience but as a speaker I have stood in this house and also said that I will not be a hypocrite to what I have preached and what I have said before I've said I believe I will hold on to my faith unless they're overwhelming reasons why I have to change my mind and if I have to change my mind I will say so why I'm changing my mind that has been my position that is why Mr. Speaker I was very pleased by the comments made by the member for the Fort North regarding COVID but you know Mr. Speaker in opposition I have said and I will say again we need an independent assessment of how we handle COVID the question is whether as a country we took the right decisions whether we handled COVID beyond criticism whether we gave the best medical care that was available whether the medical care we provided failed us and failed our people to date Mr. Speaker over 400 persons have died in the future and when we look at those statistics and we reduce them to a per capita basis it is a significant number of deaths all of us have been touched by COVID I lost relatives so like a lot of other people I understood what the pain was and it's still for me an issue that we are allowing those deaths to recede into memory into history human beings have a strange way of dealing with issues of death it really fascinates me how we handle and deal with issues of death I mean it's unbelievable sometimes that those persons who have lost their lives the families who have suffered we have just pretended they don't exist so they don't have any real pain of one kind or another this country has never really said to those families we feel for you we know what you went through as a country I've never done it and I remember pleading and saying listen we need to come together as a country and just in memory of those that was too much for us to do we never did it but I maintain my position Mr. Speaker that our handling of COVID we need an assessment you know why I'm Mr. Speaker because we have must develop the will we must develop the correct to change those things which we did wrong for the future to build a more resilient healthcare system and people are searching for all kind of praises about how they handle COVID etc while they're searching for praises they're also not saying what it is that they did wrong to unleash the speed and suffering on this country and the people of this country I have great admiration for the doctors I have great admiration for the nurses but I know we also did a lot of things wrong I know there are those who didn't have the courage to treat COVID patients I know all of that we can't pretend that those things did not exist and so Mr. Speaker my view has always been that as we address those issues of COVID and consistently with a view that we are severely impacted that at some point Mr. Speaker that we do this review so that we can strengthen our health systems and to ensure that those issues are not repeated. I believe that a member of Euphold North also is absolutely correct to draw attention to the future of COVID and those who suffered with COVID and the complications that could arise. It is a huge issue a monumental issue and it's really the tip of the iceberg when you read all the reports both from in the region and elsewhere and it means that sooner or later that we have to come to terms with the history of resources in the health care sector and how we resolve it and I'm really very glad that the member is alive to those issues and that some discernible progress is being made on that universal health care UAC front. I think this is going to be vital but at the same time we've got to prepare for that wave and also to prepare for the future. So Mr. Speaker in summary then this is welcome initiative the government is to be in my view commended. I accept the imperfections in the instrument. I accept that the government will find itself in a difficult position because it's dealing with unimaginative bureaucrats and decision makers in the region and elsewhere. I already have at this stage of my life no need to make any apologies for anything that I say. I think about it very carefully and when I speak of those bureaucrats they know exactly who I mean and what I mean. So I mean let's pretend that they don't know what I mean. They do not disservice and they're unrealistic in the expectations of people. Unrealistic in respect of what the governments require. Unrealistic of what the future holds and insensitive to the real needs of individuals. I mean when you really look at this program and the minister did a great job you could see how carefully the program is hedged with all kinds of petty little requirements all over the place and it's going to be interesting to see how it's going to be administered. I can't understand how a program like that 14 million. You're spending 1.5 million in an administrative program like that? Or you should be spending 1.5 million in an administrative program like that? What is it with a program like that that the Caribbean Development Bank is imposing on a government? 1.5 million? You know what 1.5 million can do for me if you thought you can give me the money to pay those electricity bills I'm talking about? What are you talking about? What is spending 1.5 million? But that's how they think and they are the greatest enemies of progress because you see Mr. Speaker what has happened is that they have become ossified in their thinking as technocrats. You know these regional technocrats don't understand the world is changing you know. They don't know you know. They don't know what is facing these islands. They don't know what is what what is facing the world. They don't even understand the political imperatives that apply. That's a tragedy Mr. Speaker and these are the issues that we have but then Mr. Speaker that doesn't absorb us from looking at our own problems and that's been the burden of my contribution to say look even if we want to be constrained by these people in terms of what we can do and how we can help them and how we can touch slides we need to be also be imaginative of how we deal with their own problems and I end with the plea that I made. Both Lucilleck and the last code needs to be engaged to see how we can help out the poor in this country rather than putting them in despair because simply they can't enjoy the basic utilities and facilities which they ought to have. That is what I mean when we sometimes have to look at very real problems. They can't these agencies cannot be allowed to do what they want with people's lives and politicians and not supposed to speak to these issues. We are elected by people to speak about all of these issues and I hope Mr. Speaker that we can do this quickly and that somehow some respite would be provided to those who have been denied those services. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Prime Minister. Mr. Speaker I want to start where the member of UFO itself ended Mr. Speaker. On the attitude to politicians that some technocrats helped Mr. Speaker, when Mr. Speaker sometimes you really can't blame them you know. When you listen to a former Prime Minister speak in public and tell you he's the one who initiated he's the one who initiated the moratorium and the ECCB for households he comes and he says to the public everybody can hear Mr. Speaker when Mr. Speaker you know so you really have to understand why some of these technocrats not listen to us you know because when you have a leader of the opposition come and put on his Facebook page that we borrowed five hundred and five million dollars for this year when he can a former Minister of Finance can print that in the public for the whole world to see Facebook has billions of viewers Mr. Speaker and he up technocrats and saying if this guy can print that you think we can give him our money to control. So Mr. Speaker sometimes I also I also get very no view with technocrats I tell them that I've since over time I have been we've had some rough discussions on giving me 30 million years dollars I want me to change the whole world for that. I've had these discussions on that but it is because of the behavior of people like the leader of the opposition by technocrats we have that way Mr. Speaker but we have to change that. Mr. Speaker this is the worst global crisis that the world has suffered since the Great Depression. But the leader of the opposition comes and stands up and gives a impression that St. Lucia is in a little in a little hole and what you're doing you're not doing nothing Mr. Speaker. What you're doing Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker all countries all countries Mr. Speaker all countries all countries are suffering from inflation. During COVID Mr. Speaker there was zero inflation or deflation that's what that's the economy he managed. Zero inflation or deflation Mr. Speaker. Right now the entire world the entire world is screaming because of inflation. The UK changed two prime ministers in six weeks Mr. Speaker because of management of the economy and you come and you sit down and you sit and you speak about you speak about the UK changed two prime ministers because of economic management. The UK changed two prime ministers because of economic management. Two prime ministers because of the management of the economy one of them was supply side and the other ones and the people said that is not good and the markets crashed because of the reduction in taxation for the rich and famous the market crashed. Part of the reason why and the UK government changed Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker the entire world the great United States the great United States and Congress the Republicans are controlling Congress because the people perceive the management of the economy because the inflation is at its highest it has been for decades. The leadership comes here and he plays and he pretends Mr. Speaker that he was even on perception Mr. Speaker. Glybdok absolutely no facts. Glybdok Mr. Speaker flashing mirrors forces the truth Mr. Speaker. We are in a global crisis Mr. Speaker. A crisis. And the leader of the opposition wants to make people believe that the government could do more. He said he told us how to change the supplies the supply side issues. You think a man can stand up in the parliament and tell the world that he taught us he tried to help us to improve on the supply side issues so we're making containers in Zanussia. We own ships in Zanussia. He tried to help us on the supply side issues. He tried to tell us what to do to improve the supply side problems in the country. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker what the leader of the opposition does is why is he was trying to grow the economy the people who suffering. That's the difference between him and us Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker look at the first two years of any Labour Party government and look at the first two years before COVID of the government that leader of the opposition was prime minister and tell me the difference. I want him to tell me one achievement of his government before COVID. One. One achievement. One. Just one. One hotel I was built. One hotel. One hotel I was built Mr. Speaker. One hotel I was built. One hotel I was built. I want him to tell me. Let's talk about re-reducing unemployment. Mr. Speaker. The range hotel was started. You see Mr. Speaker. You see now Mr. Speaker in the sun I promise myself never to respond to him. But he said I want to apologize to my colleagues and the public for getting up to remind him that I beat him. But I promised not and I won't do it again. I'll never do it again. Because you know that kind of business leader we stop Sanders hotel. Last week in the courts Sanders versus landings the court ruled on that situation. I did that. I run the court now. Who else? We should have stopped. We should have stopped. And Sanders building now. And the building now. How many they build under you? How many rooms you build? How many rooms you build? Where? You build them. Mr. Speaker. You know that kind of delusion that caused him to lose election you know. That's why on the night election he fell down. Because that kind of delusion because he was saying to people that he won 17 seats. He went to a kind of meeting and as usual he denigrated me. As usual something is trying to do here. And he told his colleagues what? So somebody told him you have a little issue he left an election. That's what he does. And he continues to do it. Deluding himself with a fear of his surrogate that he is not what he is. And Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. All the information. He speaks about population Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. In 2019 the labor force was 100,976 people. In 2020 the labor force was 95,790 people. So there were less people. So when the government must go down. Let's be walking. Mr. Speaker. You know this use and abuse of statistics. Playing that you smart. Next thing. Next pose. We have not given people the dollar fifty. We promise on petrol tax Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. How could we reduce petrol tax when we were making no money on petrol? How could we do what? It was being subsidized already. So reduce what? How could we reduce the petrol tax when people were collecting no petrol tax? How can we reduce it? But I'm going to tell you that if the trajectory of petrol prices remain the same and we are reasonably sure that in the future it will not increase we will keep our promise to the farmers. That is the government we operate. Mr. Speaker. Let me remind the leader of the opposition Mr. Speaker. Because you know he says comes up his accent and talks these kind of things. He talks about tourism arrivals. We had an arrangement for a PPP agreement where the government would have no absolutely no liability or we would not have to come to parliament for any guarantee. He crashed the agreement because he said he was collecting money on tourism arrivals and he comes there and boasts and then laments tourism arrivals when you put the country in debt because you said that tourism arrivals would help pay the debt. You put the country in debt because you said that tourism you didn't have the foresight to know that if there was an unforeseen situation that as there was a Covid nobody knew Covid would come but there could have been a hurricane. You put the country in debt. You put the country in debt. Right now we may have a debt of at least 250 million US dollars. At least. And I'm going to make a statement again on the airport. I've kept very quiet. I've allowed them to insult me to come in this eye. But the time will come. I'm going to make two statements, two disclosures. St. Jude and Ewanora. Take your time. Thank you minister. St. Jude and Ewanora. Because this bluff about 70% complete. About St. Jude hospital, state of the art. The truth of St. Jude comes. But the same minister speaker. I waited. I waited for patients. I was elected in the parliament in 1997. I waited until 2020 want to become prime minister. No, no. I went once. I lost. And I won again. And I understood to lead. You must follow. So this is why when I was in the government, I walked hand in hand with Kenny Anthony who was prime minister. That is the difference. That's the difference, Mr. Speaker. That's the difference, Mr. Speaker. So let's get back to Ewanora and to wisdom arrivals, Mr. Speaker. Let's go there a little bit. Let's go a little bit there. This leader of the opposition. Authorize a contract with a contractor to build a building. And he had absolutely no end, no end figure. Absolutely no end figure. No idea how much it will cost. Go ahead and build an election coming. Let me fool them. That's what you know. That is economic management. This is the economic guru. Started an airport. Change the plans. 3,000 pairs when the plan said 716 pairs. Speaking about a thing about home porting. Home porting. That was at its best, at its best hope. At its best, Mr. Speaker. Then father compounded and said that you had a plan to build a cruise terminal in Viewfort. Hoping that you can destabilize Viewfort South and Viewfort North, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me tell you the difference between GPH and Carnival. The leader of the opposition went to Miami in a big story. And had a big scene. All kinds of things. On the LED lights. Like LED. All kinds of things. He went and doing that with the speaker. Then he said at that sign in. Oh, we're very happy to have Carnival available in solution. Absolutely nothing after that. Nothing after that. GPH. The people came here. Went to the official residence and the prime minister. Signed the MOU and immediately after that there's a concessionary agreement which we are going to discuss. Before when we signed the MOU, the minister of finance was involved. All the relevant people in the tourism industry were involved before we signed the MOU. And now the concessionary agreement is in the public. The minister of finance technicals have it. Everybody has it. We're going to discuss it. We're going to be into the public. But what does the leader put on his Facebook page? We sell the pot. Mr. Speaker, you know, I said here, I said here. And I said, Mr. Speaker, the relevant person says that we do nothing. We have done nothing for people. Page 64 of the budget address that I read. And the next budget address, we are going to be comparing achievements. In reality, subsidizing cooking gas. Our subsidy for cooking gas is the highest ever in his time. The subsidy for cooking gas used to be at its highest $10. Now the subsidy for cooking gas is between $18 and $20 per time it reached $25 million. What have we done to relieve people? Increase annual personal tax allowance. Increase annual personal tax allowance from $18,000 to $25,000. You know what that means? That means that from January, more than 10,000 people in the country will pay less tax. Cautioning consumers from the full impact of rising full prices. You know what you did, Mr. Speaker? We removed the 6.5% service charge on commodities that must be bought. And up to this day, we subsidized flour and sugar. You never had to subsidize flour and sugar, never. Never. We subsidized up to the bank of flour. It should cost $100 and something. We subsidized it by between $50 and $60 every bag of flour for the full solution. That's what we do, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what have we done to cushion the impact? We've waived interest and parity charges on personal and company tax for everybody and we've written off all company tax due before the year 2000. That's what we've done. That's what we've done to grow the economy. What have we done to grow the economy, Mr. Speaker? In a little while, we're going to borrow directly $10 million to grant and soft loans for micro and small businesses, Mr. Speaker. What have we done to grow the economy? We've created the community tourism project. Very soon next month, we are going to be giving grants and loans for people to get involved in indigenous tourism ventures, continuing the Nature Heritage Tourism Project that I started when I was a minister of tourism. What have we done for people? What have we done? We've funded the creative industries to give people a sense of pride in the country, a sense of being sent, Lucian, Mr. Speaker. But how have we funded it? We've done emancipation, the activities. The first time a government has got involved in emancipation because we're not afraid of our history. Our patrimony is not our credit card. Our patrimony is our history and colonialism has no conscience. That's what we do. That's a difference, Mr. Speaker. That's a difference, Mr. Speaker. That's what we've done. What have we done, Mr. Speaker? We've waived import duty of $10,000 for public servants to get them a look at East, Mr. Speaker. What have we done, Mr. Speaker? We have provided a $500 one-off payment to pensioners and in conjunction with NIC, we've raised all its pensions by about 4% in the first instance. That's what we've done. What have we done, Mr. Speaker? What have we done? We've paid the civil servants their increase and we're going to pay them their back pay in December. That's what we've done. What have we done, Mr. Speaker? Mr. Speaker, during this period, the price of rice and flour. Flour has increased by over 30%. White sugar by over 75%. Rice over 15%. But because we've subsidized it, we've kept the prices at the full reach of the population. So what have we done, Mr. Speaker? What have we done? Mr. Speaker, I want the public to compare my first 18 months as Prime Minister with his first 18 months. I never want to go into a business comparison, but if you open the door, I'll go in. Compare my 18 months. Compare the promises of my first budget with your first budget and what you did in your 18 months. Mr. Speaker, let's talk about growing economy. Growing economy, Mr. Speaker. You came into government and you found Grozile Highway. And every day I feel sorry for my colleague from Grozile because people complain to get from castries to Grozile. It's about 40 minutes, 50 minutes, Mr. Speaker, because you and your friend refused to go ahead with a loan that was negotiated for the castries Grozile Highway because you could not have your way with the contractors. And you know what you did? You spent $21 million on less than half a mile of road instead of spending the money to continue the highway. That's what you did. But the story of that has not been said. Mr. Speaker, and you speak about progress and being an economic manager and doing this and doing that, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this lead of the opposition in the government that he said that he'll run so well did not attract one investment before COVID. In fact, he found the Range Hotel. We came here and we warned him, do not interfere with the Range Hotel arrangement. He interfered because he's smart and bright. He interfered, Mr. Speaker, and we lost the Range Hotel and we had to pay back Range for the hotel. And the Range Hotel went to Dominica. They built a hotel there and they built another one soon and wine and tea. Where's the one in St. Lucia? Mr. Speaker, you see, if the leader of the opposition had come to this honorable house and speak about the loan and make some sort of suggestions how it can be improved, but he can't help himself feeling under pressure in his party, so he can't help himself. So when he comes, he comes and he tries to ridicule me. We had our convention peaceful and well and I want to send the delegates 250 to 0. Mr. Speaker, let us go further in the leader of the opposition talking about managing the economy. Mr. Speaker, the leader of the opposition speaks about flooding in Corrine and flooding in Bexon. Mr. Speaker, do you know that when he came into government, he found a study financed by the CDB where some Canadian engineers had a complete plan for the Bexon mitigation and for the Bexon adaptation to flooding. A complete plan. We invited the parliamentary rep at the time to come to a meeting to discuss with the consultants the plan to avoid the, to avoid. I didn't say stop. Look at me wrong. I never said that we would stop it. I said to try to avoid it, to avoid the flooding in Bexon. There was an entire plan. The parliamentary rep came to the meeting. He asked all the questions that he wanted to ask. We lost the election. And we never blamed solutions for what was out. We never blamed solutions. We accepted the will of the people. They forgot us out. We accepted the will. You know when he came into government, they scrapped that entire plan and they said the solution to the problem is disillusioned. They scrapped the entire plan. They didn't even look. And they said, I talk about managing a government, managing an economy. The answer to the solution, they spent millions of dollars in the solution Bexon where I go say who owned the tractors. I don't own the new tractors. Mr Speaker, that is the disillusioned history of the leader of the government. That's his history. That's his history in disillusioned. I want him to tell the public whether he didn't find a complete plan to help the flooding in Bexon. Hoping to alleviate it. And you know what they did? They went to full people. They tried to put a health center in a flood plain. Mr Speaker, that is the reality. And you know Mr Speaker, he hasn't learned. You know he still threatens journalists. He still threatens journalists. He still calls journalists on the phone and threatens them. He still does that. He still calls journalists on the telephone and threatens them. Tell them the girls are off and now it's time. He still does it. And you want to tell me, the people of St. Lucia haven't understood that? After you threatened so many journalists. You tell them you are ashamed of them. You tell them they are all kind of things. You lost election. You still threatened them and say that's not true. It's true you threatened them. Of course he threatened the journalists. And if you see, and when you see the time to come, I'll put a tape. Of course he threatened the journalists. He threatened them because he said, let me tell you something. This leader of the government is something else. He wrote the police saying to the police that he's having a thousand people in a match. He wrote the letter. He wrote the police telling them to give him permission for a thousand people in a match. That's what he did. When he did not get a thousand people. Homie McGill Francis. Homie McGill Francis father was a police like me. I'll get a letter. I'm right here. Homie McGill said to the press that he was not happy with the crowd. He got so annoyed. You don't know what he called homie. What is his name? What is his name? Homie McGill Francis. He got so annoyed and he threatened the journalists. He said to the journalists, you're not printing what I say. We're talking about a match. So many things. You never talk about my press release. We're talking about this and the girls are off. The girls are off. And he went further. And he tried to get the journalists fired by calling the journalists boss. That's what you do. No journalists. There's not one journalist in this country can say Philip J.P. ever threatened them. They write whatever they want about me. Talk to us. Say whatever they want about me. I respect their right to disagree and I respect the freedom of expression. Mr. Speaker, this leader of the opposition who comes here and talks about borrowing. Mr. Speaker, in 2016, the minister of finance sat here and he said that we are going to support borrowing on the three conditions. One, if the debt was incurred before, like if we spoke about a project and I had borrowed for it. Two, if it was to help people. And three, if it was a national capital expenditure. That's what we said. When we came into opposition, we never questioned the government's right to borrow. What we questioned is what they were borrowing for. That's what we questioned. You cannot tell me. You borrowed 32 million dollars to pay Lockerbie. 32 million dollars. And what is the result of that? You improve. You put tooth. And I've never gone into that argument. Because I like my arguments to be solid based in the science. What you did is you put tooth on three grounds. Sufre, Miko and Dennery. And you spend 32 million dollars to improve playing fields. 32 million dollars. What did you do? You borrowed for Pimandu. You paid them 13 million US dollars to tell you what this tetra class can tell you all the time. But because you don't have the confidence in our local technocrats. Because you don't have the confidence in our local expertise. You listen about it from abroad to tell you 13 million dollars to tell you what our technocrats say all the time. 30 million dollars US dollars. That's what you borrowed for. You know what you borrowed from Mr. Spiegel? And he's speaking about borrowing. And you know, today the minister of housing is correct. And we're not going to go into the, we're not going to go into what they call the anatomy of borrowing now. But we're going to go into it. Because Mr. Spiegel. And I hope the minister, the member for Shoezell listens to what I say. I don't want him to go down that track. Because up to now he still has a level of believability. He still has a level of believability, Mr. Spiegel. So if he goes down that track, he will lose all that believability. Because I'll tell you something. You know, anything, anything that the leader of the opposition says. In there, there's something that's not true. He just cannot help himself. Why in the good name you could put on a Facebook page that the government borrowed around the 9 million dollars in October? October was last month. Anybody can tell you how he didn't borrow money in October. But you printed for the Facebook people to listen to. And you wanted, you want to argue that and try to attack me. You want to argue that? Mr. Spiegel, the guy's hungry. Mr. Spiegel, I want to tell you that we have enough time, we have a lot of time, Mr. Spiegel, to discuss. We have a lot of time to discuss borrowing. We have a lot of time, Mr. Spiegel. We have a lot of time. All the resolutions that we get the parliament to borrow, we'll be able to discuss it. We'll be able to discuss what we borrowed for, why we borrowed from Mr. Spiegel, and what we promised as far as borrowing is concerned. But today, the borrowing is unique. The borrowing is for people. Fundamentally for people. Valuable people. The single mothers that he attacks. The people that he calls Americans. The people that he says is going to demonstrate in Marchion. These are the people we borrowed for. The people that he said that I want St. Jude to look like Marchion. Them people in Marchion. Them are great in Marchion. That's what they do. That's the people we borrowed for. And whilst we are doing that, we are creating an environment where the businesses can make more money, both large and small, and helping small businesses to make money. That's the difference between us and them, Mr. Spiegel. So, Mrs. Spiegel, I want to, before I leave, I want to just say very quickly about Liatz. You know, Mrs. Spiegel, the minister, member from Mikusov, talks about crashing airlines. You know he has employed two airlines that crash? He was involved in two airlines that went on the Asia-Macon, Asia-Macon, and was in a mountain, Caribbean. E.C. Express went on the two. Asia-Macon, E.C. Express, he was involved in E.C. Express, but right now he knows all the answers to Liatz, but he couldn't run E.C. Express. You know, Mrs. Spiegel, sometimes, when you hear these guys speak, and hear people say, oh, he's the best, this is not it. You have to look at the reality with the reality. E.C. Express was being managed by the leader of the opposition. It crashed, but you know what he blames? He blames, he says, oh, there are seven unregulatory bodies, but why did E.C. Express crash? Liatz. Mrs. Spiegel, the leader of the opposition has been persistently and consistently attacking and denigrating Liatz, because his idea for Liatz was you should have a certain kind of play that he alone would know about. Talks about, compares, Mrs. Spiegel, listen, you must listen to these things, you know. The leader compares Belize to a craft with Liatz. You know what's Liatz's fundamental problem, Mrs. Spiegel? It has all his hop and job, hop and job, a high maintenance cost for his hop and job. 40 minutes to St. Lucia, 40 minutes to St. Vincent, 30 minutes to Martinique, one hour to Antigua. But Belize is a vast country. Belize hasn't got its job and, like Liatz, how you can compare an airline that services a vast country like Belize with a little hop and airline that deals with 40 minutes to be finished. That's the difference. High maintenance cost, Mrs. Spiegel. But you know why? The leader of the opposition does not like anything West Indian. He refuses to pay the University of the West Indies. We owe the University of the West Indies $20 million plus and climb in Mrs. Spiegel. He believes that the community college, the community college at the moment is a waste of time. And he's on record of saying that. All what I say, I can prove it. All what I say, I can prove it, Mrs. Spiegel. So what I'm doing there is not the personal attack. The post-attacks, when they attack me, my attacks are based on very far-backed facts. I want any of the surrogates to say anything I said today is not true. Anything I said is all about how it's not true. Mrs. Spiegel, the deficit on the left party, on the Kenyans and Mrs. Spiegel. 2.8% 2014-15, 2.4% 2015-16. When it took the government in 2016, the deficit was 1.3%. 1.3% the deficit, Mrs. Spiegel. That's what he narrated. And what did he bring it? Wasteful expenditure. Travel. But general letter. Mrs. Spiegel, I want to applaud the minister for his sigmatedness as far as his passion, Mrs. Spiegel. Sometimes we need to speak to him. He needs to get some counseling when it comes to some things that he does, Mrs. Spiegel. But I want to congratulate him. I want to say I'm very happy for the workers of majestic industries. And it's not a promise again, it's reality. It's not a promise, it's a reality. He'll get the money. And we didn't sell any building to get the money. And the reality is what the leader of the opposition, Mrs. Spiegel, I know you want to go. But this thing is so, this thing, it hooks me, Mrs. Spiegel. It hooks me. Because you know, when I hear these lies, Mrs. Spiegel. Sorry, you're doing it, I must hear these lies. When I hear these untruths, Mrs. Spiegel, I have to, because Mrs. Spiegel, the records, I have the records. The records are available, Mrs. Spiegel. Let me give you a letter. You want to make it a document that allows, Mrs. Spiegel? Mrs. Spiegel, July 16, 2020. Now you know what's happening today, you remember, right? Compensation for workers employed with majestic industries. Further to a meeting. I read it, I read it. Well, I agree, I read it. That's what I'm going to fail at. Further to a meeting held on December 5, 2020. Further to a meeting held on December 5, 2019. 2019. A delegation from the National Okas Union, including John Haywood, Secretary-General, Paulice Meyers, Deputy President-General, Laurence Poirot, Senior Industrialist Specialist, a former shop steward from majestic industries limited. The on-the-side and yourself and Minister Guy Jose. A general meeting for the former employees of majestic industries was held on Thursday, July 16, 2020 at the National Okas Union at Unity House and Soussi. Over 100 former employees attended that meeting. The leadership of the NW gave a detailed explanation on the discussions at our previous meeting. As a result, the workers present voted in favor of the following. The hand-adviled worker belonging to the company should be sold. Proceeds from the sale should be used to compensate the workers. 150 of the former employees are prepared to accept $10,000 each as an excursion payment in lieu of servants, noticeable invocation entitlements to be closure to this matter. We do hope that you will be willing to give us an opportunity to meet with you to find a final settlement on this long-outstanding matter. You understand? That was the letter that was written, Mrs. Mida. When we came into government, I met the same union and I said, these people have suffered enough. So we're not waiting for no building to sell, we're not waiting for anything of this nature. We are going to pay the workers according to a list that you prepared. We're going to form a special purpose vehicle, put the bonds in there and the union graciously, and I sang them for that, they graciously accepted the bonds. We're going to put the bonds in a special purpose vehicle and you will handle it and pay the workers because we have confidence. Mr. Speaker, that was endorsed by Cabinet tomorrow. Yesterday, same finally at workers. That is the truth, Mr. Speaker, and we are at Mr. Speaker. I thank you. I remember the question is that Parliament authorizes the Minister for Finance to borrow US $5,217,000 from the special funds resources of the bank to finance safety nets for vulnerable populations affected by COVID-19. And be it further resolved that the loan is repairable in 80 equal or approximately equal and quarterly installments. Loan payments commence on the first day of January, the first day of April, the first day of July, and the first day of October of each year after a grace period of three years following the date of the loan or such later date as the bank specifies in writing. Interest is payable at a rate of 4.39% per annum on the amount of the principal disboost and outstanding and the borrower may request an interest rate conversion from the bank. I now put the question as many as of that opinion. Say aye. As many as of a country opinion. Say no. I think the ayes have it. The ayes have it. Prime Minister. Mr Speaker, I move that this house be suspended until 4.45. Remember the question is that this house do stand suspended until 4.45 pm. I now put the question as many as of that opinion. Say aye. As many as of a country opinion. Say no. I think the ayes have it. The ayes have it. Sit in suspended. Well, it's our concern that the first month, session that we consider today, each of us debate, each of us speak, we have to do the government, we have to do the state, we have to do the public services. We have to do the home affairs. We have to deal with the situation. We have to do the state, we have to deal with the infrastructure. We have to do budget work. We have to deal with the situation. We have to do Jonesman. We have to do the squash. They do the Playing with a vote. So there is goodbye, we have also taken our steps, we have a responsibility to have business which must we My business, you guys, I'm, I'm one of them, keep my business. And then the government, I keep, I'm shy, shy by all. It's a motion for government put a cut million dollars to aid men who can suffer by location COVID. Many Winston, Winston Springer, he said, you know, put a billion dollars, because the net is in place. Good afternoon to you. The focus today was on a motion to borrow five and a quarter million United States dollars from the special funds, fund resources to finance a safety net for vulnerable, or vulnerable part of the population affected by COVID-19 in that or speaking on that motion. We heard from the member for Cascary Southeast. We heard from the member for Swazel, Cascary Central, Villefort North and Villefort South with the minister of finance and prime minister wrapping up in the end. The house has been adjourned or suspended until 545 when we will return here to hear the other motions. And this one is a motion to borrow or authorize parliament than the minister of finance to borrow an amount of 3,704,000 from the bank special development fund 10th cycle loan facility to support a micro, small and medium enterprises sector post COVID-19. The Honourable Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Economic Development, the Youth Economy and the Minister for Justice and National Security will also table a first reading of the Constitution of an amendment to the Constitution of St. Lucia. So we'll be back at 545. Until then, stay safe. 445, I beg your pardon. Thank you, Gasper. 445. Until then, stay safe.