 Welcome to NTM Nightly. I am Jesse Leance. This edition stops stories, hundreds of Saint Lucians to benefit from government's newly launched electricity assistance program. The Ministry of Health receives further COVID-19 assistance from PAHO and is celebrating the international year of plant health. The Government of Saint Lucia continues to roll out social and economic intervention programs as thousands of Saint Lucians grapple with the financial fallout from COVID-19. On Wednesday 14th October 2020, Government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saint Lucia Electricity Services Limited, Lucilek, giving life to the electricity assistance program. The MOU was signed during a live ceremony on the National Television Network. The initiative provides bill payment relief to qualifying individuals. Honourable Leonard Mantute is the Minister for Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment. All is set for the start of this electricity assistance program, which will see the application of electricity bill credits of $75 per month to qualify households for a period of six months from October 2020 to March 2021. I view this as another welcomed intervention, which I am sure will be very much appreciated by beneficiary households. On behalf of the Ministry of Equity, I wish to express profound gratitude to everyone who contributed to the design of this initiative and who I am sure will assist with the implementation. Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Hon. Alan Chastney says, the electricity assistance program was designed to add value to the lives most affected by the pandemic. The initiative offers assistance to groups of persons we believe are extremely vulnerable and in need of extension of support by the government. The program offers a credit to participants that is in line with the average monthly consumption of low-income households. Persons who meet the criteria and have decided to opt into the program will receive the nominal credits on their September 2020 to February 2021 electricity bills. These credits would be applied by Looslick and paid for by the government of St. Lucia. We anticipate that approximately 5,000 to 6,000 solutions will benefit under this program. The government has embarked upon a broad-based consultation over the past six to eight months and has worked closely with public sector agencies, private sector entities, civil society, not-for-profit organizations and statutory bodies to develop various strategies and interventions. One such organization is the St. Lucia Electricity Services Limited. We are very pleased today to participate in this signing ceremony, which is symbolic of our partnering with the electricity company services to make this intervention possible. On Thursday, 15th October 2020, Looslick will receive the first list of qualifying individuals for the relief program. Trevor Luise is the managing director of Looslick. The efforts at developing the framework and arrangements pertaining to the EAP commenced in late June and here we are today to sign off on an MOU that will guide the process. I want to thank the government of St. Lucia for initiating this program, but I need to say a special thanks and I hope I don't offend some of the other persons. A special thanks to Mr. Jonai Elios from the Ministry of Finance and Mrs. Irene Gasper from the Ministry of Equity for the tireless efforts at ensuring we got to this point today. Managing director of Looslick, Trevor Luise. And meantime, the Ministry of Equity says it has been challenged in meeting the increasing needs of St. Lucia's affected by COVID-19. The Ministry continues to provide expanded assistance to persons on the Public Assistance Program, the 312 clients on the Child Disability Grant, 183 children in foster care, 78 people living with HIV, as well as income support for 4,263 non-NIC contributors, totaling $6.4 million. Another significant intervention is the expansion of the Public Assistance Program, PAP, or the Welfare Program by 1,000 eligible households from 2,600 to 3,600. As I speak, extension officers of the Ministry are in the field engaged in a PAP rectification and expansion exercise and from November 2020, qualifying households based on the application of the SLNet 3.0 will receive cash transfers in keeping with established payments amount to households under the PAP. As some of you may know, the Government of St. Lucia has already secured donor funds of over US$700,000 from the India-U.N. Development Partnership Fund and the World Food Program and its donors to support this initiative. Government also provided $3 million to the SSDF Educational Assistance Program. Food packages, hot meals, care and hygiene kits are also forming part of the Ministry's overall social stabilization program. As part of efforts to investigate case number 29 of COVID-19 and contact tracing, the Ministry of Health will be undertaking the necessary interventions in communities including assessments and health education. The Ministry of Health invites residents of the community of Olyon-Dennery to an outreach activity at the Paradise Inn in Olyon-Dennery on Thursday, October 15 and Friday, October 16 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. for assessment and testing for COVID-19. The intervention will also focus on health education, on infection and prevention control measures such as use of face masks and hand hygiene. The Ministry asks for your cooperation and participation in this activity. The Ministry of Health and Wellness has received a consignment of a personal protective equipment from the Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO. We have Lisa Joseph with the story. The Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO, has made a donation of personal protection equipment, PPEs, to the Ministry of Health and Wellness. PAHO Country Program Specialist, Renaud Ewett says the donation is a recognition of support to the Ministry for its response to COVID-19. The funding grant that made the donation possible was made available from the Canadian Government and the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. Through technical cooperation with St. Lucia, PAHO has provided more than half a million US dollars in assistance to the Ministry of Health since the onset of the pandemic. We are satisfied with the achievements made by the Government of St. Lucia and the leadership of the Ministry of Health in their effective and measured response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is anticipated that the PPEs will support infection prevention and control program to strengthen its case management and screening of COVID-19 cases in St. Lucia. As we progress through the phase of the pandemic, the health system needs to continue to be prepared and respond to other health emergencies and support disease surveillance and prevention activities of any new or existing infectious disease. The UK Government has pledged more than one billion pounds to counter the impact of COVID-19 globally as well as to find and distribute the vaccine. Steve McCready is the resident British Commissioner in St. Lucia. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office has also adapted over 200 programs as well as using centrally managed programs to channel these resources to the global response. I'm very delighted that the UK has supported PAHO's COVID-19 response here in the Caribbean through the World Health Organization and topped this up with further support to eight Caribbean states throughout the Caribbean and this has been done through the Caribbean Development Team of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. This has resulted in a combined total so far of 55 million eastern Caribbean dollars being used in the Caribbean to combat coronavirus. St. Lucia has also benefitted from the commitment of the Government of Canada to the global COVID-19 fight. The Canadian Government has provided $5 million to the region. St. Lucia has been allocated $700,000 in equipment. This follows diagnostic equipment that was presented to the Ezra Long Lab. We have here PPEs but there's also medical respirators, medical and respirators, masks and face shields and so on. Initially when I was seeing that the progress in terms of procuring everything was so slow when we were doing this back in probably April, I thought it would be not relevant anymore but unfortunately seven months down the road this is still very very relevant for every country as we still we're facing you know the threat of second waves and so on so in a way I'm happy that it's here even though it would have been I would have preferred before but it's still very it's extremely relevant unfortunately. Minister for Health and Wellness Senator Hon. Mary Isaac expressed a profound gratitude of the Government and people of St. Lucia to the donor partners. It is with the generosity of friendly governments such as Canada who is here today handing over much needed PPEs and medical equipment that assist us in our continued efforts to contain COVID-19. I wish to take this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to all frontline workers around the world. Our frontline workers are endangering their own lives to strengthen our healthcare systems and protect every single one of us who have survived COVID-19. As part of the Ministry of Health's agreement with Paho, the Ministry's to provide periodic reports on the achievements made to control COVID-19, manage infection, prevention and control among healthcare workers, interventions at ports of entry, case management, risk communication and community involvement. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reports in. The Ministry of Agriculture joins the United Nations in celebrating the International Year of Plant Health 2020. More from Inesia Antoine. The Research and Development Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Physical Planning, Natural Resources and Cooperatives, hosted a tree planting ceremony in an effort to promote actions which protect plant health and to raise awareness on how protecting plant health can save God lives, the environment and boost economic development. The Acting Minister for Agriculture, Honourable Herod Stanislaus, urged the public to ensure that plants being imported to St. Lucia meet phytosanitary requirements to help reduce the spread of plant pests and diseases. The urgent reality is that plant health is increasingly under threat. Climate change and human activities has altered ecosystems, reducing biodiversity and creating new niches where pests can thrive. At the same time, international travel and trade has tripled in volume in the last decade and can quickly spread pests and diseases around the world causing great damage to native plants and the environment. Colleagues, protecting plants from pests and diseases is far more cost-effective than dealing with full-blown plant health emergencies. The Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute, CARDI, has been working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture in educating industry stakeholders on the measures that should be adopted to ensure that the safety of food production is sustained. CARDI's representatives of St. Lucia, Andrea Vera, highlighted the importance of initiatives such as the tree planting ceremony. I want us to think for a moment about the situation globally with COVID-19 and think about this from an angle of plants. So we have a disease that is affecting our human race throughout the world. What if we had a disease that was affecting all of our crops so that they are dying off? What's going to happen to us in terms of food? And if you think about that for a minute, it brings home the importance of food security and ensuring that we take care of our plants, pest and disease management, integrated pest management approaches, agricultural approaches, our quarantine procedures, the health and safety of trans movement of crops and plant materials throughout the region and throughout all of our countries. We bring things into St. Lucia. We want to ensure that all of these things are safe and protected because we don't want our food industry to be severely affected to the point where we cannot feed our people. And therein lies the very importance of international plant health and all of the measures that we as the Ministry of Agriculture in the region, in St. Lucia, the agencies like CARDI, IKA, the FAO, all come into play to ensure that we teach persons and we educate persons on the measures and practices that should be used and adapted to ensure that safety of our food production industry is sustained. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that up to 40% of food crops are lost due to plant pests and diseases annually. From the Information Unit at the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. As part of its activities for Financial Information Month 2020, the Bankers Association of St. Lucia has been active in educating the general public and giving back to the poor and elderly. Representatives from the various banks came together recently to pay a special visit and make a donation to the Villa St. Joseph Home for the elderly. It's not every day that the staff and residents of the Villa St. Joseph Home in January gets visitors, but it was indeed a special occasion. Members of the Bankers Association of St. Lucia chose to bless the home with a much-welcomed donation of essentials to include food items, toiletries, cleaning agents, water, and even a variety of fresh fruit for its residents as part of its activities for Financial Information Month. According to bank officials, COVID-19 has negatively impacted everyone, including the elderly and those who take care of them, and they both need support. As part of our mandate in reaching out to our communities and on behalf of the Bankers Association, in recognition of FIM 2020 Financial Information Month, I would like to offer you this donation. Food items, grocery items, we have cleaning supplies as well. We have some fruits and water. We know that this will go a long way, and we're hoping during this time, this pandemic, it will assist you to take care of our elderlies that we definitely care for. Chairperson of the Home to Rodendas and the residents didn't hold back in expressing how grateful they were for the assistance. On behalf of Villa St. Joseph, the Board of Directors, the management and the residents of the Villa, we would like to thank the Bankers Association for this wonderful donation they have given to the residents. This will go a long way, since right now, because of the pandemic, our budget has been stretched, and I think this will help us to do what we have to do for the residents. We thank you very much. Okay, that's okay. I'd like to say something for all of you. Come and see us in Villa St. Joseph, and come and give all the poor people in this room and we are going to bless all of you. Thank you. Come in the room and have a blessed day. Thank you so much. And I want all of you to reach home very safely. Thank you. Thank you so much. The theme for Financial Information Month is financial empowerment through education, and for its regional partners, the focus this year is on reaching out to the public and helping to educate and build financial resilience during this global pandemic. The Villa St. Joseph home has been in existence for over 30 years, caring for the elderly in the community of Dennery. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reports in... Up next, we have Primers Hutchinson with the NTN Nubella Crayola. Be aware of and follow water conservation practices. Here are a few tips to help you save water. Wash dishes in a basin of water instead of a running tap. Soak pots and pans instead of letting the water run while scraping them. Check toilets for leaks by putting dye in the tank. If color shows in the bowl without flushing, there is a leak. A leaking toilet can waste thousands of gallons of water. Use a bucket instead of a hose to wash cars and reuse grey water from laundry to water plants. Water conservation reduces energy consumption and strain on the water distribution system. Conserve water whenever possible and remember, every job counts. A message brought to you by the Water and Sewage Company Incorporated, WASCO. Welcome back time now for the NTN Nubella Crayola with Primers Hutchinson. Mr. Otta, Jesse, Mr. Madame, I would like to inform you that the Nubella Crayola Government, GIS, and the National Television of NTN, are new to the country. They are Primers Hutchinson. The Ministry of Health, presently, has conducted a investigation which has been conducted since the last month to isolate the FIEF Dengue. According to the Ministry, every day is a day when the Department of Health continues to be responsible for the FIEF Dengue. According to the Department of Health, I would like all these tests to be done in order to adjust the public health to find a solution. And now, the Ministry has expected its results to be as effective as it was. Presently, this year, I have recorded the first test of the FIEF Dengue and the second test of the FIEF Dengue which has conducted an investigation which has been conducted since the last month to remove the FIEF Dengue. Since October 3, this year, I have recorded the first test of the FIEF Dengue which has been conducted since the last month to remove the FIEF Dengue. It is decided that the FIEF Dengue will be effective in the next three weeks until the next four weeks. The first test of the FIEF Dengue has been conducted since the last month to remove the FIEF Dengue which has been conducted from the last month to the next four weeks. The Department of Health has explained that all the FIEF Dengue has been conducted since the last month to remove the FIEF Dengue which has been conducted from the last month to the next four weeks. So, we have done the first test of the FIEF Dengue which has been conducted since the last month to remove the FIEF Dengue which has been conducted I found the opportunity to buy a chemical company, which is a company that is able to take care of the cleaning for the place of business. I also got the opportunity to buy a business in Dominique to buy these products. Since 2019, I have been doing business in Dominique, and after that, I have been doing business in Dominique to get good results. The first achievement for Dominique is that its container is very long, which is a very diverse chemical product that can be used in domestic products, for cleaning, and also for the place of business work. The chief of the chemical company, Thomas Rosary, said that he would like to play at the end, and that it would be a pleasure to negotiate with him, and that it would be the best for him. Rosary said that he is more confident in the quality of the products that the company is selling. I would like to thank Exports Saint-Laussier Otta and the 6th C.U.T.B. for negotiating with him. Chief Exports Saint-Laussier Sonita Daniel, said that he has the responsibility to deliver to the customer the quality of the products that are needed, and that it will help the customer pay for Corona. Exports Saint-Laussier has continued to make it clear that it is a desire to work in this place. For example, Daniel, said that his country is like OCS, that it is a place of strength, that it is a place that is as good as possible to advertise the place of work in this country as possible. I would like to thank the institution for the Amassad-Gosile. This is Gene Gasson, who is in a good direction in the life of the people who work in this country. This is Mr. Wang Sanson, who is a vision for this institution. It is to change the opinion of the public and the society of Gene Gasson. According to Sanson, I have accomplished a lot of things with the state and other necessary dispositions to live and operate in this society. If Gene Gasson is here, I will participate in a big sport in the country, and I will do it too. I have taken a lot of examinations and decisions to continue to establish programs to help with profitability. We will let Gene Gasson speak again. To make this place a place where Gene is coming, he will leave with a paper which says that there is no qualification for you to work outside. For everyone here who is a professional, everyone who works here is a professional, and you have to work in the first place in this young world. I would like to thank Mr. Wang Sanson for his contribution to the community. I would like to thank Mr. Wang Sanson for his contribution to the community. Thank you, Mr. Pio Primus. Well, we've come to the end of the NT and Magli. Join us next time at 7pm with a repeat at 7am. You can also catch up with us anytime on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or the YouTube channel. I'm Jesse Leon signing off for now. Do stay tuned for more NTN Programming.