 So as you may know, I was on a short vacation during that time Julian Alfred did wonderful things for our country. You also know that during that period we launched the first ever semi-professional football league in St. Lucia. We have ongoing works at the Darren Sambier cricket grounds and we are also at our final stages of our youth policy shoot. Yesterday we saw the first match there of the semi-professional football league. From your other games, tell me what did you see based on the performance of both teams? In terms of the actual football first and then the... In terms of the actual football, you will appreciate in every single league, semi-professional league, when you have two tiers, you have a first division, a second division, you would find that the teams at the bottom, playing in the bottom league, which is what we saw in the first game, lacking some of the cutting edge that you're looking for. So in terms of the Babono versus Marsha game, it was not as entertaining, not many shots on goal. As a matter of fact, the only shot on goal was the penalty that Babono converted in the final minutes of that game. And so there's a lot to be desired, but it also explained to us, to St. Lucia and of course those communities, why they are in the second tier. And of course, when you have a competition with relegation and promotion, you would know that these teams are trying to get into the main end of the St. Lucia semi-professional football league. And so there's a lot to be desired by those two teams in terms of fitness, in terms of technique, but I know for sure they will be going back to the drawing board and they will be doing their best. The second game is pretty much what a lot of people would expect in terms of, when you look at football in England, you look at the English Premier League, you look for games between Liverpool and Arsenal, you look for games between Chelsea and Arsenal, or Manchester United and Arsenal, not the constant. You would know that this is the top tier of football in England, so it will be night and day in terms of what you see. And of course, that game was a better game. Grusley came out on top naturally one-nil against Leclerc, who came in as champions. And so, still a lot to be desired, even in the top tier game, in terms of finishing, in terms of execution, in terms of game planning, in terms of fitness, because clearly you could have seen Leclerc being slightly the fitter of the two teams, because the last 15 minutes of that game, you saw a lot of pressing by Leclerc, as two champions trying to get back into that game. But Grusley helped them out, they did what they had to do, and they were victorious. And so, in our first-ever semi-pro day, Grusley came out on top one-nil, and of course, Babano defeated Marsha one-nil. They said, I'm not inventing too much for my issue, but the facility, short inspection of the facility, I don't know if that's been brought to your attention, but the Marsha facility, you know, was once, you know, a brand name. But from the top floor, I don't know if it's the fourth floor, there's still a burn. The burn structure, it's entirely, I know we have the visitors coming in, and there's a lot of preparation. Would you take in all these amenities, the stands? Thank you very much for that question. It allows me to go back, because we have very short-term memory in this country. When we came in as government, if you looked at the Mendo Phillip Park, and what we saw yesterday, night and day, the stands on the right-hand side, that did not exist, and it was not available for patrons for the last five, six, almost eight years, that has been done. The roofing on that side that has been done. The main side as well, the roof was totally damaged. We have done work there. Rome was not built in a day, but we have certainly, over the last two years, done a lot of work on the Mendo Phillip Park. This week, as a matter of fact, today, you will see commencement on the area that you speak of, which is the Players Pavilion. That entire area will be upgraded before Cricket woke up. So what you saw yesterday and what you will see in the next two weeks will be totally different. I am very proud of the work we have done at the Mendo Phillip Park, given the fact that for a five, almost six-year period, there was absolutely no attention given to the Mendo Phillip Park. And we do. There was a certain doctrine that supported that sort of action. And right now, for the first time in so many years, the launch of a semi-professional football league was held at the Mendo Phillip Park. And I mean, everybody commented on the fact that for so long, we have not seen so many people at the Mendo Phillip Park enjoying football. And that, as a government, we can take pride in. We deliberately decided to bring football back to the Mecca. Castries football has been at a downturn for a number of years. And under my watch, it will not continue. We will be moving to the works at the VG playing field after budget. We have a lighting project that we are going to do at VG with Pavilion so that central castries can have a home next year in the semi-professional football league. So will maintenance be maintained at Marsha? Oh, absolutely. So at Marsha is the pride and joy of the Prime Minister. And so we will be seeing the commencement of works on the Pavilion for Marsha because we know that football is primarily played at Marsha and of course cricket and track and field at the Mendo Phillip Park. And so next year's semi-pro league, we are expected that by that time the Marsha playing field will be available for Marsha's home games. Similar to that, Grosely, we are commencing work next week on the Grosely Mini Stadium and so we will be seeing the blockade, the pavilions, the washroom facilities for Grosely. So Grosely will have their home venue for the semi-professional league. Another thing I must note, yesterday we were actually having a complaint. One of the biggest complaints we were having was from the vendors who said that all the drinks were sold out. And I mean that is something that we are very happy about. What the vision is is for Grosely, who has their franchise to have their vending at the Grosely playing field to really support the initiative of maintaining the playing field and of course compensating the staff and that sort of thing. And so that is the vision for all the constituencies and of course it's not going to happen in just one term. But come our next term, we would see that most of the playing fields would have a home venue so that the semi-professionally could be what we truly want it to be. Should this initiative be successful in the future? I'm not speaking ahead of myself. But don't we see a copy and a paste of that idea on another spot? So to semi-professionalise something else. I know this is far ahead in the future. Not so far. As a matter of fact, the same amount of, let's just say, attention that football is getting, we do intend to move in that direction with Cricket as well. We do have an SPL, Saint Lucia Premier League. It's for about a month or two. We do intend to work with the organisers. We encourage private enterprise. So we do have a private individual involved in that. The idea is to continue to give support and to give more support so it could be expanded into a league that is beyond five and six months. In the sport of Cricket, we've done another thing that is novel and historic in Saint Lucia's history. We actually have a high-performance centre for our best cricketers. These cricketers are also being compensated, meaning on a monthly basis they are compensated about $1500 that goes in their pocket to deal with whatever circumstances that befall them. So they have the option of being part of the high-performance centre, making that money and of course still having a job that pays them perhaps the same amount or even more to ensure that the livelihoods are upgraded. This is the vision of the Saint Lucia Labour Party and this government to ensure that young people are engaged in meaningful ways. Thank you for that question. You see, we have to be strategic as a government. The season has only just begun. We have the Olympics that's in July. We do have a long season for Julian Alfred. The expectation is that Julian is going to meddle at every event. So if Julian participates and meddles in every event, are we going to bring her down every single time she meddles? So we have to think about what's happening, the trajectory. The fact of the matter is, after the Olympics, this government is going to put on a celebration for Julian Alfred like we've never seen before. Whether she meddles or not, whether she is going to meddle, we are going to make pronouncements, some of which we've already begun discussing, on how it is that we honour her so that generations to come can pretty much understand what she's done for this country, including her community, including some of the things that I can't let the cat out of the back. But certainly, this government has been a government of historic achievements in sports. Go check our track record. Every single development in sports has been under this government. And so her legacy is not one we're going to let fall by the wayside. What she's done this year is not something that we're going to just allow to pass off. So to answer your question, we will be celebrating Julian, but we're going to wait for this historic season to come to an end, come to its logical conclusion, as the member from the library would say, and then we're going to put on a vibe like we've never seen around the island in celebration of Julian Alfred. $100,000 from First Nationally into sports. Happy about my protector and involvement participation in sports. It's really nice when a plan actually comes to fruition. When we first announced that we were going to take school sports to the weekend, we got so many criticisms. People were saying, oh, the Catholic Church would never agree. Oh, the Adventist Church would never agree. And we kept saying to people, madness, insanity is doing something the same way and expecting a different result. The fact of the matter is the corporate sector involvement into schools, island champs, it depleted significantly because of the ROI, the lack of it, lack of return on investment. You have a track and field tournament happening during the week. You don't have parents in the stands. You don't have the public in the stands. You only have school students who have zero, I shouldn't say zero, limited buying power into the activities of the corporate sector. How it is, how do you sell the sport to them and give them a return on the investment? And so we saw sponsorship going all the way down. And as we said, if we bring this thing on the weekend, corporate sponsors will come and support this activity. First national, this is not their first time getting involved in the development of our fleets in St. Lucia. We see it. Historic move, $100,000 invested in our into schools competition. The island champ being moved to a Sunday. So this Sunday, the 17th of March, we will see from two o'clock, the first ever into school championships where parents could attend, where family members could attend, the general community. So it's no longer going to be a schools event, but a national event that exposes our young talent to all of St. Lucia and the rest of the world. And so I am extremely excited that this was another promise made by this administration that we are fulfilling because the young people really deserve the attention for their hard work and we're going to see that being done this weekend. You mentioned the youth policy. What is that? Okay. So the national youth policy is really going to drive how young people's development is affected over the next couple of years. And of course, my ministry charged with the responsibility of youth development. They are going to be pretty much put in a policy which sets the tune for how this is exercised by government. It's going to be law. So I mean, there are a couple of declarations in there. It's a document, a policy document that we've been working on for a long time. And sometimes people forget that it's a ministry of youth development and sports. A lot of the time, sports take most of the attention. And we believe that young people have a major role to play in the development of this country. And so with that policy, it's going to chart the way forward and identify exactly how we're going to do it, how society is going to come on board and how we're going to actually shape the future of our next generation. Coming very soon. The last one. Going back to semi-pro sports, predicts the tractors will believe government should be far away from sports administration. What's your response to that? I say they are correct. I say you are correct in saying that government needs to stay as far away as possible from the actual commercial aspect of sport. And this is actually the vision that this government have for semi-pro league. We needed to get a start. We could not have continued to just stand on the sideline and have people say that football is not developing. Our young people are playing. They are tuning for multiple hours and they're not getting compensated. A lot of them were on the blocks. I can say to you that yesterday I sat in the stands and I watched individuals that on a Sunday afternoon would have been shot at literally shot at in grossly on the playing field and I felt to myself this is where they need to be. They caught back into playing football. Grossly people will know individuals that I'm speaking about. They are into meaningful activity and the thing that is lost with the semi-pro league that I need to see again. The tagline is pretty much developing using leveraging football to transform lives and this is what we need to continue to understand. We are leveraging football to transform lives. So with this program we are going to be having a parenting workshop for these young men. We know that a lot of the complaints are about fathers in the household and their role and so with this program we are going to be bringing all the young men into a room to have discussions to train them on what it means in a modern world. With this program we have also signed the MOU, the Ministry of Education and NSDC and the time in this government to provide the finances over $200,000 in finances for skills development in terms of anybody who wants to be a plumber, anybody who wants to be a carpenter, a bartender a massage therapist. We have over 15 items identified as training options for those young men The development thrust is not just about paying people to run kickerball but to actually leverage football to transform their lives. Money management is another program that we are going to have because some of these footballers, some will be making $15,000 some will be making $2,000 a month for the first time in their life and so at the end of the day you want to speak to them about how do you invest how much do you save, what percentage do you if for some people type how do you actually use your money to sustain your livelihood and so this semi-pro league is something that I am extremely passionate about simply again because of my experience I've said this many times, I was a national footballer, I went and kicked ball all over the world for Saint Lucia when I got injured I had to deliver my injury myself so the sum total of money I made from football is less than negative $20,000 so anybody who kicks a ball right now for a first division team is making more money than I made for my entire career from playing football and this is what we have to do In terms of what we have to do In terms of what we have to do In terms of what we have to do this is what we speak about in terms of government being removed by the time the corporate world understands what's going on in terms of semi-pro football we will be asking people to send proposals to sponsor and we would have to pick and choose because the amount of attention the return on investment these companies can have would definitely trigger them to come to gravity towards the league we have in proposers coming through right now for sponsorship tagline sponsorship would be in excess of $500,000 for some leagues and so we will be able to as time goes by compensate footballers better and better and you have to understand that this is a first year so we don't expect to be paying $5,000 in the first year but by year 3 and 4 the expectation is we would have full transfers, there are a couple of footballers I saw yesterday that I would want to play for Grosile and so they transfer fee and the amount you may have to be compensated for coming and play for Grosile may be in excess of $3,000 for a month but these things don't happen in the first year. The first year you have the football, you pay attention to what's going on and you definitely make adjustments going forward to strengthen your team and to ensure that players are better compensated Would there be media engagement and courses as well in the training I know that's an important aspect of athletes So a huge component of the semi-pro league that has not been put out there is the collaboration with the youth economy agency So this government is about synergy this government is about working together to ensure that all works of life all the resources are brought together to ensure that whatever initiative we have flourishes So under the youth economy agency the partnership with the semi-pro league and the ministry of sports would allow for training for individuals and financing as a matter of fact right now if you have an idea that you know could bring some level of equity and promotion of the semi-pro league you have that business idea you are in a position where you can put a proposal together and go to the youth economy agency and get funding in the first instance of up to $5,000 for that business idea once it's an idea that is well thought of put together and we could see it being sustained So right now I mean persons that are involved in photography videography that can actually get something put something together in collaboration with the semi-pro league and actually go to the youth economy agency could definitely benefit from it Anything on sport betting in the future? Sport betting is something that we cannot avoid growing up I had my positions on sports betting and of course the impact it's had on families and it continues to have on families but it's something that I know as a minister in the modern age is spreading like wildfire and so we expect for it to continue with this league we right now have video lotteries from both cage and from CBN and so we expect that this eventually will be well treated and it will only at the end of the day contribute to the whole environment that is sports and sports development and competition and financing we just have to be careful to ensure that part of our programs is ensuring that our footballers are on the street and narrow in terms of any way they may be able to contaminate the sporting competition so we know that this is something that is alive and well and we're certainly hoping that it will become part of any football competitions that we promote that's a good one any updates on the ICCT 20 yes updates on the ICCT 20 I did give some the works on the Mender for the park they commence today in terms of the pavilion aspect of things and work will continue on the surface of the Mender for the park next week we're expecting the commencement of work on the grossly playing field in terms of transforming the grossly playing field into a grossly minestadium I don't like that name we will find an individual from grossly to name the field after eventually and so the Darren Sammy cricket grounds if you pass a Darren Sammy at 10 o'clock in the night you will still see work ongoing in terms of the roof a totally new roof a modern roof able to withstand the sea blast from Kazaba beach is being constructed right now the surface is being redone because we know we had issues with flooding and water logs on the Darren Sammy and of course the technology for the spider cams and for all the cameras and the media centre that has already commenced as well so we're expecting work to be completed by the end of April at all three of these venues we're going to have to work night and day and we're certainly expecting that Senusia will put on a very very good work up event Mr and Minister for Tourism Investments Creative Industries Culture and Information Honourable Doctor Ernest Yile Good morning to all today I'm taking questions Senusia recently won the award for Best Corporate Retreat I know that that was a strike that the government was trying to do to get Senusia work but you mentioned in that regard what is the significance of this award for us it is hugely significant and I want to start off by saying congratulations to the many stakeholders in Senusia that made that possible the central tourism authority the hotels and the destination management companies that certainly and do a lot of the work for this to become a reality for us it's a big deal it really matters to us the development of the tourism industry for us to expand the mice segment of it and for us to be able to be recognised at this early stage as a Caribbean Best Corporate Retreat is a big deal we made a very determined effort last year to facilitate and to promote the hosting of events as well as meetings, conferences in Senusia so for us to have received that that early was really exciting and we will continue to work to promote that area and we certainly looking forward to the commencement of the Grand Hyatt in Srozel which will be specialising in that area meetings, conferences incentives what not so we really really excited by it with the recent exploits of Julian Alfred on the whole stage there have been talks about sports tourism, how to really develop sports tourism, what has been done to develop sports tourism? Well a few years ago under previous Labour Party Government we had placed sports tourism right at the forefront in fact some of you who old enough may remember Reds Perrera actually served as a sports consultant and we did quite a lot I recall those days I was permanent secretary for youth and sports then and we did a lot especially attracting schools cricket out of the UK during Easter break as well as during the summer it was well established we hosted a number of OECS events and of course with Reds Perrera a lot was that to promote OECS Marathon, OECS swimming netball quite a lot we are building for us to to set up again a very very active you know sports tourism calendar the Ministry of Tourism has done a lot in promoting alternative sports and that is super exciting for us there's some changes that have taken place in the market from then compared to now so for example I can say to you it was sometimes very embarrassing for us when we brought down cricketers and netball teams from the UK what not and they go out to the rural communities and you know persons want to use toilets and you know other facilities and they did not exist and that was sometimes very challenging for us over the last few years many of the facilities around the island have been upgraded you look at in Dennery North you have a very almost I mean Dennery North you can host first class cricket that's how good it is in terms of size facilities and lights you have in Dennery you have not so much Miku especially the vulgarity that took place to put artificial turf there but that's another story you can go to Viewfort and Souffre so a lot of the facilities have been upgraded and that's what we need but if we are going to invite schools and other professional teams to come to Sainte Lucia we have to be able to offer them the very best facilities and of course you can understand the standards have really risen so we are preparing ourselves at the tourism authority we have some big targets in the coming years sports tourism is one, diving is another one but we you will see a greater effort being made to promote I think in the summer this summer we have quite a lot of sports we have woke up cricket, CPL we have the English tour hopefully coming on we have swimming coming on and we are looking at a couple of other areas recently for independence we had the drag racing and drag racing as you know is big in this part of the region we have been working for investment Lucia to support the development of that sport so yes, just take note in the next couple of years the place to come in the Eastern Caribbean for sports tourism this is the addition of the semi-professional with us as well the addition of the semi-professional the semi-professional football takes it to a different level the semi-professional football is not just about sports it's an economic initiative it's a social initiative as well as a sporting initiative many years we have reflected how we make our athletes world-class and to create a high-performance athlete you need to have multiple facets in place and we've often heard our sports people say that they have to hustle a living they have to find a job and they don't always have the time to focus on their sporting development the semi-professional league offers an opportunity now for footballers to be able to spend more time focusing on skill development and personal development and have to worry less about where the next meal coming from where the next money is coming from because they are going to receive support to be able to do so so they can spend more time training rehabilitation even reading and even personal development I tell young athletes so often you want to be a world-class athlete and sometimes you don't even know the history of the sport that you're involved in sometimes you have to when you go online rather than read all the other things online read about your sport read about the great ones in your sport what they did to succeed read about the great athletes the mindset they developed the regime they developed for success there's so much that you can learn but if you have to worry about going to break a job tomorrow it distracts you from that even though to your nutrition if you're going to be a high-performance athlete you have to eat right you have to know what's the proper regime you have to follow semi-professionally will do all of that so it's an economic activity in terms of engaging young persons in some form of employment but it's also too vital for their personal and professional development learning how to tie a tie and fork how to fill out immigration forms simple things that you believe are not necessary but all that is part of what you're reading upon nutrition what foods you must eat what foods you must not eat and what not so it is a fantastic addition to our sports development program in solution but it's also very critical as it deals with social development because we have a large group of young men that we've now pulled into a very productive pathway so I'm really excited about it now I was glad I was there yesterday to see the first matches and to see the first goal that was scored so let's go just for a second now we started in France in France and I know that the government is the one who's pushing the initiative for this area in terms of integrating it across the OECS at the very least to make countries have similar ideas come together in the franchising element of it could be just like I guess the EU are there any plans or intentions to have that kind of development I can't speak about what the ministry of sports plans are but I can tell you this is one step at a time let's take the baby steps and then we'll start running very soon I'm hoping it can evolve because I think they already I know there's the Nations Cup within the CFU and what not they have their own structure their own processes remember government is like the financier of the link together in the FA so our interest is to get it going and to make it happen and the relevant sporting association will follow their own pathway as far as it's done but government for government is really critical that we get this going I'm hoping too we'll have a semi-professional before the T20 senior professional league T20 which attracted big crowds at most issues and other parts of the island so I'm hoping we too can put something in place for the cricketers I often argue on people sometimes we have debates with my friends about it I tell them there are three sports that we will class in well two sports really we will class in from junior level as cricket and track and field if you think about it a 15 year old in San Lucia can be among the best in the world a 15 year old sprinter in San Lucia or any track athlete can be among the best in the world and we have shown that we can be the best in those two sports at junior level so we shouldn't nurture and propagate it as much as possible we do them our marine resources we don't say that it's a big event we have ARC we host a lot of foreign we don't have our own development you know young kids want to be more built I know two friends I had this platform we don't have a big building we don't use our marine resources we don't say it is a big sport would there be I can't talk about sports development I think the right person is a minister of sports to really speak about that but of course it is part of the program certainly for us in tourism we do very involved in yachting and the yacht cruises it is big for us in tourism it is important development I think the best can talk about us can you just how it is project for tourism are you a minister sir well I think we are waiting for the prime minister to present on the 20 food we are super excited again about the presentation of the estimates I know for a fact from my ministry perspective we have a lot to see we have a lot to report on so I can't say it now but I mean just to give you a sense we are investing heavily in community tourism some of you were present where we had the signing ceremony for more investment in infrastructure for community tourism we will be investing a lot in the creative industries this year so you will hear a lot about the creative industries and the support that it gets you will hear a lot more about the increased support for carnival for example and our cultural expressions you will hear a lot more about our support for la rosa and margaret and for emancipation I hope I get more than an hour to speak about all the things I want to discuss because the government is investing heavily in those sectors and of course for tourism our numbers are excellent when I last spoke to you I told you January it was for 2019 and our best January ever February is also the best February we have ever had for January and February this year our numbers are even better than last year and better than 2019 so we are on course if all goes well and God looks over us to have an excellent year in terms of our numbers so our numbers are increasing and so we are restructuring the tourism industry we are investing more in community tourism to put more for the average solution to participate and own the tourism industry so at all levels we can boost our tremendous success any issue of taxism I have not heard of any I have not heard of any I know that religious tourism is something that people are looking at currently what aspects of that would the government like for your ministry highlight and how can it become something for it's a new area for us and last week in the agreement we signed with the Caricom Development Fund it provides for financing for a project together with the Catholic Church they adjust the cathedral for us to be able to produce in there a visitor experience and of course you would have recall a few years ago the incident that took place at the cathedral and the loss of lives so there is going to be a free matter shrine a shrine erected with a narrative a story about what happened and the importance of it to the Catholic faith and it will be an opportunity for persons to come and visit the church and in addition to what you traditionally will do in a church it will be an opportunity now for those of you who may have traveled to the parts of the world and have seen some of those experiences it is quite a rewarding experience from the perspective of spirituality but also to in terms of its tourism component to be able to attract visitors for us it enhances the reputation of castries as a city and as a destination that visitors who come into this country will be more to see in castries there is a lot of work to be done in castries and upgrade in castries and this certainly will add to it some of the plans the government has for castries will assist as well I think you know that very shortly the old ministry of education will be broken down the course of justice will be erected and add to the look and feel of the city there is a lot that is going to happen so I think the religious tourism is another exciting component that we are adding so we are working with the church on it Is there an update on the party? I understand that on Friday there would have been a ceremony or something of that sort No there is not a ceremony there is a meeting with the developers so we had a meeting on Friday the developers DCA, investor in Lucha, the ministry of tourism and the parliamentary reps for the area where we looked at the proposals that they put forth in terms of the development of the project and it is quite a lengthy meeting but we made sure we covered all aspects of it so the parliamentary reps can now go back and speak to their constituents about it DCA was updated on what was proposed and the developer now will take it to the next stage we have been very particular about it to make sure all stakeholders are on the same page but for us it is a very critical project because you know for years since 2008 it is 14 years that site has been abandoned and it is an eyesore it is the loss of hope of what could have happened for those coastal communities so we are very determined to work with a developer to make it real but at the same time we equally committed to make sure that we observe all the necessary protocols and all the necessary precautions that will still safeguard the area for what it is before hotels and the construction presently we should continue to wrap up all these great illustrious accolades for tourism and yet still you have a small segment of the population who are impressed with another hotel tourism tourism tourism so give us your feedback in relation to their sentiments governments after governments continue to put pedestalized tourism one and two certainly argument or debate can't seem Lucian vilely survive without tourism can we creep it away from it you know it is an excellent question and you know if you had university there would be a whole course in political economy of tourism and first you really examine all the arguments because once you may not agree with some of those arguments there is some basis for those sentiments and is how do you address it now there are people that would not support tourism blanket no matter what you tell them what argument you put before them they will not support it because they don't like the symbolism of having the country's economic growth economic development dependent on persons from outside having to come in there are some people that have what you call autarchic they believe if you only develop from within the trophies in an interdependent world you cannot really develop like that anymore you need to have relations with other countries and be interdependent and that's the reality of the global political economy so we need to be able to trade what we have competitive advantages in what do we have the most competitive advantage in tourism we cannot produce make manufacture cars cheaper than Japan and the United States we cannot make refrigerators and televisions we cannot make semiconductors cheaper than anybody else how many things can we produce in this world and be the most competitive about it we don't have oil, we don't have diamonds we don't have uranium what do we have we have the beauty of the country we have the warmth of the people and we know how to offer the best experiences in the world and that's what we have in this region of the world the world leaders in doing that we are limited by size because we are not large territories with small islands and therefore when you look at the numbers it can be daunting that your country have 170,000 80,000 people but yet 1.2 million people will come to your country for the year both for pools and overnight so I can see why some people have a vision towards that and then you have people who believe that tourism requires that we give up the parts of St. Lucia to be occupied by foreigners whether on the beaches or whether the forests, the rainfalls the waterfalls the rivers and they don't like it they don't think we should be giving up those spaces again there is some truth to that but we have to find the right balance we shouldn't give up all of what's best of us but we have to be able to understand that for us to continue to be competitive and to continue to earn a livelihood out of tourism we have to learn to coexist with it with it so how do we do that and that's always the challenge for governments to how do you define the coexistence we know what happened with the last government with DSH another development that took place in the north and other developments where they seem to have been no regard for understanding of a balanced coexistence for us we want to exploit the advantages we have but we don't want to lose the soul and the essence of who we are as a people so I can see why some people all that view but the reality is that we're not world class in manufacturing we're not world class in agriculture it's probably cheaper to buy a pong of tomatoes from Miami than to buy it from a local farmer that's the reality of economies of scale it's not that our local farmers are bad it's not that they cannot do better the economies of scale suggest that somebody who has you know 20,000-40,000 acres can produce one pong of tomatoes cheaper than somebody that has you know quarter acre that's just economics but we know when it comes to tourism not many places in the world can better us at this and therefore we have to make use of it because it generates the income that keeps this country going at least at this stage until we find an alternative it was not always tourism at one time it was the banana industry at one time it was but that's no longer the case we're going to try financial services watch what happened with the OECD and all the restrictions and virtually shut down that industry we're trying to diversify and going to CIP and other investments and look at what they're trying to do to also shut down those things they've not been able to shut down our tourism so we have to be able to manage it so that our people can benefit but we have to pay salaries we have to build roads we have to take care of our hospitals and our teachers and right now tourism is what offers us the best avenue to do so would you be concerned that you're losing public buying that's not excellent that's not a dimension so when I became Prime Minister and I spoke about tourism and why we wanted to go one of the first things I asked my ministry and the tourism authority was to start a national public education campaign about a people's tourism a real tourism a tourism that places its central focus on the people because I believe if our people understand that this is an economic opportunity to better their lives and not to feel that they're estranged from the process we can have a better tourism so our people can benefit more which is why we're investing in the community tourism why we're investing in giving concessions to ordinary solutions to invest more and to own more of the tourism industry because we have to show our people that they can benefit more from tourism it is why we're lobbying the hotels and other service providers to pay higher salaries to our people so our people can benefit more for it as long as our people cannot see greater benefits and see an attempt has been made for them to get greater benefits they will always be cynical about it and rightfully so so we must fight for them we must fight for better salaries we must fight for more opportunities government must give more support incentives, financial so our people because watch that's our natural resource we don't have diamonds extraordinary physical beauty and the warmth and welcoming nature of our people that's what we have but our people should own more of it our people should benefit more from it and for me that's the kind of tourism I want and I think the more we can achieve that is the less naysayers we will have it is you cannot have a sustainable tourism without having a focus on ecotourism now I'm not saying all tourism should become ecotourism people put in our sap and walk in the years you have to have multiple dimensions which is why we push in the mice we push in religious tourism we push in the diving sector and all the dimensions must be present in terms of those in terms of structural development in terms of interior because I know the majority of our island is forested and mountainous thank you the interior are there any plans to do anything inside like the terminal of the country we shouldn't because that's part of what we are offering because if you look at some of the islands they are wrong as they have beautiful beaches some islands have more beautiful beaches than us but not many islands maybe no other in the eastern caribbean has the balance that Senusha has beautiful beaches forests, waterfalls rivers, the same interior that you speak of they have no other island in the eastern caribbean the wooden island I believe that can rank that balance is Jamaica no other island can boost that balance that Senusha has and when you add to that our cultural expressions we unsurpass we unsurpass so Senusha in the next five years also if we continue on the trajectory that we are will become the premier destination let's touch on something controversial you indicated that your ministry you will inquire on the establishment of the rafting business in the Rosu area of your predecessor your ministerial predecessor responded by indicating that you will have conversations with these legal advisors to have that comment from the house removed from the record what is your response to his posture concerning that minister well I'll tell you something I try to avoid even given any semblance of of attention to the former minister I think the more he realizes that the possibilities for him and his party are diminishing is the more outlandish he will become in the things that he says all I can say to him is please go to your lawyer and ask your lawyer to seek to remove the comments I will pay the lawyer for him if he wants what can I say well let him let him continue to masquerade and see what comes out of it because that's all he's doing but let him proceed let him go to his lawyer and ask his lawyer to get it removed and like I tell him I will help him pay the lawyer that's how much I want him to try to get the comments removed let me see if I can help him out one more CIP skeptics opposition detractors continue to bastardize the CIP painting it as something dirty whenever a territory with CIP comes under some sort of substantial pressure they mention Saint Lucia's name and that maybe you might have some sort of similar faith or similar sanction currently in your time overseeing CIP has Saint Lucia come under any sanction what's the status of the CIP program is it healthy is the administration Europe part of maybe considering winding it down wrapping it up where we were CIP well I can say I'm very proud of our CIP when we started in 2016 we had a particular framework which we thought was robust rigid and was designed to test all the challenges that would be out there some changes were made to it we didn't agree with the changes but since then time has moved on it's almost impossible to go back to the original shape and form that we had because the industry has just changed so much but Saint Lucia has remained a destination that is known for its emphasis on due diligence and its emphasis on you know transparency what not so I'm still very proud of the work we've done in that regard and we continue to be seen as a destination that places extraordinary emphasis on those aspects but we also wanted as a government to make sure that the CIP can start delivering directly to the people of Saint Lucia not simply by raising revenue that goes to the Treasury but to start making some direct contributions and we have made some adjustments and during the budget presentation the Prime Minister will make some major non-spends as to projects that will commence in this country through the CIP and I'm really happy we've been able to reach that point because you see in the other islands housing projects and roads and bridges and factories and schools and hospitals being built through the CIP we never had that in Saint Lucia for five years under the last government and I think we're going to reach a point now in Saint Lucia but we can make a couple of big announcements on projects that will be funded directly so in addition to contributing to revenue you will also see direct projects for the benefit of the people of Saint Lucia Okay, going back to tourism the discussion about the main revenue in Saint Lucia we see all these plans to develop tourism and basically put Saint Lucia down at the back but the reality is where we are located and where in El Nino we're looking at early stock one incident and everything's gone what's the plan B, what's the backup plan? Well the backup plan in terms of tourism because let me take the opportunity to just reflect on this because that's one of the criticisms people have sometimes that tourism can be so fickle one incident and it's gone and I say to them when we had the banana industry one storm and what happens it's gone same way tourism is no less no more fickle than the banana industry was and we've had many instances many instances with the banana industry where we had tropical storm Debbie, we had Thomas, we had so many of them that destroyed the banana industry it took us nine months to recover because the plan took nine months before it can bear again COVID just showed us something with tourism it's a lot more resilient and a lot more adaptive than we believe it is because within weeks we're starting to allow opening our borders people started coming back so the tourism industry is a lot more adaptive and resilient than anybody ever thought it was and I think that taught us that tourism is not what we believe it is in fact the banana industry was more inflexible and more exposed and vulnerable than the tourism industry was and if we could get a competitive advantage in manufacturing I think we should pursue it we already have a few success stories Baron Foods and a few others we need to build on that but we had to find ways of producing cheaper than other places in the world because if you can produce jams and produce sauces and produce sausages and whatever you produce if you can do it cheaper than the rest of the world nobody will buy your products nobody will buy your product so we have to be mindful of that so the plan B really is for us to build resilience in the industry and for us to have the capacity to come back when we face challenges now until we can find a more competitive industry whether in agriculture whether in manufacturing then we really don't have any option but to see us introduce more technology in agriculture so that we can produce and not just produce you have to be able to export because if you think about it the country earns money when it exports tourism is an export industry it's true people come in here but foreigners come in here in exchange for a service and they pay us so in a sense we are exporting now you're not earning you think about it and which is why a lot of the countries that have developed in Asia and other parts of the world they spoke of export-led development because that's how the country earns more and more is by producing to sell to the rest of the world so we do not just have to produce to take care of ourselves which we must do but we have to also produce to export and to earn well I think solution is very involved with the situation in Haiti as you know Dr Kenyanya former Prime Minister is part of the Eminent Persons Group that is assisting with the situation in Haiti and right now he is in Haiti with other Caribbean leaders trying to resolve the situation in Haiti it is from all indications a very complicated issue very very complicated but Karikom is heavily engaged together with other international partners in the US, Kenya to try and find a way of restoring normalcy in Haiti is unfortunate the situation that Haiti is in and we all grieve for Haiti when we hear of the challenges that they face and we really hope that they can have a sense of normalcy and life can return to what persons want especially in the capital so Saint Lucia is very involved the Prime Minister is very engaged in what is going on and is regularly brief on what is happening and like I said Dr Kenyanya is in Jamaica now as they try to lend support to create that transition that is needed in Haiti Could you see a possibility opening our borders to refugees with that funds? I have not seen any reason to believe that is on the table so I can comment on it Thank you