 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the media and of course also to the solution public listening to us on NTN live, live on YouTube and also on Facebook. Welcome to today's press conference with Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Economic Growth, Job Creation, External Affairs and the Public Service Honourable Alan Shastney. Welcome Honourable Prime Minister and thank you for joining us here today. Today's press conference will take the format of covering four major areas. We will cover hurricane relief, an overview of our participation at UNGA 72 and also economic and social issues. Amongst one of our first issues down for discussion is obviously hurricane relief efforts throughout the Caribbean. I will now invite the Prime Minister who is also chairman of the OECS to give us a synopsis of relief efforts ever since we got Dominica got hit by Hurricane Maria and obviously the rest of the Caribbean got hit by Hurricane Irma and now turn you over to the Prime Minister. Well thank you very much. First of all I want to thank Didicas Jules, the Secretary General of the OECS for an incredible job that he's been doing and about two days before Irma struck the region and was Mr. Jules and I met to have a discussion to go through the the planet preparedness and I have to say that OECS traditionally has not played a role with that. It's been really more at the Karakam level and the Sedima level but after we discussed it we recognized that there were some short falls in the overall plan and I think it's something hopefully that we're going to incorporate in future future hurricane seasons and that is we're very good at having disaster plans for each destination but in terms of looking at the region holistically there was a huge shortcoming. We were anticipating at the time that Irma was going to potentially take out Guadalupe, Antigua, St. Kitts while still heading north but that's what it looked like initially and what we had learned from Hurricane Tomas is that if those countries are out and the airports are out the ability to extract people becomes very important so the hotel guests in many of those destinations have universities and then there's also the people at hospitals and anybody who may have been potentially injured. How do you get them out of the destination and what we understood was that Irma was going to be still heading north. It was heading to Puerto Rico so the places that would have immediately provided relief to us more than likely would not be available. As it was even getting closer Miami was already starting to shut down so we knew instinctively that the south would be critical and so we had discussions with Martinique, Saint Lucia and Barbados in terms of making our airports ready and then all the things that would go along with that so for instance cargo space at the airport and also the docks so if in fact supplies were coming in we immediately would have the ability to getting those supplies to those destinations. If people were arriving here we would need hotel rooms so a full inventory was done of all available hotel rooms. The hotels association really were very very responsive in that regard. We met with DigiCell and Lyme because when people we know that when people come from a hurricane disaster area more than likely they've been out of communication for a couple of days and the first phone call they want to make is their loved ones so the idea was to create data banks so that if we were going to be an evacuation center that we would be prepared. I want to emphasize that all this work was being done in conjunction with SEDEMA so at no point did we deviate or do something outside of SEDEMA because SEDEMA really takes on the full responsibility of the disaster relief so once the hurricane had passed now Antigua in which we heard the disastrous impact on Barbuda there were some initial fallouts in St. Kitts and then obviously we'd heard about the BVI and Anguilla and luckily it had skirted Puerto Rico but it was now heading to Miami and Miami now was on a full shutdown and immediately coming behind Irma was Jose. At the same time we were now getting assistance from Mexico was one of the countries that were sending planes over here and troops over here to help us there was the earthquake in Mexico so all of a sudden that relief came to a grinding halt and the only country that was really available to us was Venezuela and so the Venezuelans provided heavy equipment in terms of planes and also helicopters to be able to facilitate with the evacuation of Barbuda. We then quickly were trying to assess how bad the situation was and there were more shortcomings in our overall disaster relief strategy. The critical one is the independent countries the British territories the US territories the Dutch and the French that I was thinking I'm probably like everybody else that there was a greater level of coordination and protocols had already been established in case of a hurricane so to my dismay and I think to many people it wasn't so in fact when I went up to the BVI I think it's almost six days after the hurricane had passed was the first day that Cedema was actually making it into the BVI that you look at the Dutch Antilles that Holland was trying to facilitate a support program out of Curacao of all places and it was being directed by Hague back in Europe whereas you got Guadalupe which was nearby which is part of Europe and so I think that the difficulties that were happening there was a surprise and maybe we've never had what I call the perfect storm. What was also very interesting was when we met so as the chairman of OECS with the support of my other Prime Minister colleagues when we were having discussions with the British and the French and the Dutch and also the US territories we were very emphatic and saying to them that we have a vested interest in the outcome of what's happening in these destinations because there are thousands of our citizens who live and work in those destinations. Many of our of our economic output is vested in those countries a lot of our farmers are exporting products to those destinations and the cruise industry requires all of us in the Eastern Caribbean to be working collaboratively together so we indicated them that we were not going to be put on the outside of the room that we were going to insist that we were sitting at the table and also to say to them that we're here to help. Don't think that because it's a British territory or a French territory or a Dutch territory that we would not be willing to help and that's why one of the first things that we did in Salusha was when I heard about the status of the prisons and clearly understanding how many solutions and how many other citizens of the Eastern Caribbean are there and fearing for their own safety we immediately offered the assistance of being able to bring the prisoners to Salusha. So once we were six days after the hurricane myself and Prime Minister scared along with the Secretary General visited and Gwilla and the BVI and Tiga and St. Kitts and it was it was shocking and I think that the error in our ways in not treating infrastructure as a crisis was very evident so you could see the bad planning you could see the bad standards of construction I mean literally there was nothing left I mean and speaking to some of the people there they almost said this wasn't a hurricane this was a tornado because the way that the wind was going and you go to a landscape in which there isn't one leaf on the tree so it's just brown the whole place and there's galvanized all over the place in the case of the BVI not hundreds but thousands of boats sprued all over the island and in some cases almost like they were in a junkyard pile on top of each other and it was the absolute sense of helplessness by many people in terms of what was going to happen and I think that many of us here in Salusha can relate to that when we woke up from Tomas and that the bridges were gone it almost felt boy Salusha was finished now this is six days after the fact that the place was still looking in shambles and people were still running around and I think that that's the shortcoming of the situation I explained with Sadeema not being established protocol with some of these countries so immediately after that we then had Maria coming down the pipeline and I was not on island but I was in constant contact with the acting Prime Minister Minister Martud and obviously learning from our overall experiences and I think that you didn't know where this this this storm because remember it was a thunderstorm was going to go and they've become so unpredictable one in terms of direction and obviously in terms of strength because in speaking to friends of mine in Dominica that you're sitting at your home anticipating a thunderstorm and then three hours before it was a category two as it reached the southern tip of of Dominica became a category five which means you literally have no time to react to any of this stuff so when I hear some people being attempting to be critical of the decision to shut down the country and to send people home to prepare the question I want to ask them is this the loss of time yes but if we had not and we've been hit by that hurricane what would have happened and how many people potentially would have lost their lives and so when we make those decisions it's difficult to say it's a risk and reward situation when you're dealing with people's lives and I think that if people have more time to prepare their homes then there's a greater likelihood that they could potentially be less damaged although I think with that storm it would be very difficult for anything to have stood up to it the decision for me not to return home was made in conjunction with my Prime Minister colleagues that somebody needed to be the voice on the outside to get relief but more importantly to start to build the case after the next step so I think that we've become very good at the initial emergency part of the situation getting water getting supplies getting metal stuff you saw a huge mobilization so Nusha immediately opened up its doors like we had prior to with Irma no landing fees free cargo sheds waved all the duties of things coming in waved any requirements for people to need visas to be able to facilitate opened up our parking aprons to be able to immediately help with the the aftermath in Dominica but the longer term plan is where is the money going to come from to resolve this issue and we in the Caribbean along with other small developing states around the world have been saying for a long time that there's an organization called the OECD that has used one criteria to determine whether a country is a low income country middle income country or high income country and that criteria is per capital income and we're saying that this is too important because that that designation determines where you can get money from and how much you're going to pay pay pay for it and we've been classified as middle income Antigua is actually on the verge of becoming a high income country and so therefore the sources of funds and and how much we can get and what's the interest rate we're going to pay and what's the terms have been determined by being a middle income country so it's restricted so we've been arguing that the OECD should use a vulnerability index as well so for the smaller developing states that the impact of shocks whether it be increased in the price of oil whether it be the recession that took place in 2008 or whether it be a hurricane or an epidemic has the ability literally within hours to wipe out our economies and we don't have the reserves or the resilience to be able to handle that and so therefore we should be able to get access to lower concessionary funds if not grant funds particularly for we call it resilience building so whether it's strengthening our economies whether it's fixing up our infrastructure and so the message that I was carrying out side of Samusha was starting to pave the way for that discussion and so that led us into the UNG but I certainly I don't want to enter that because I know that's the next topic of discussion so certainly from a disaster perspective that's what we so we have a roving microphone on the ground please introduce yourself as you ask your questions are there any questions related to our hurricane relief efforts the prisoners coming in from the PBI can you confirm a number a number first the final number we're expecting and how many have come in so far and then with Dominica in mind particularly is there any move I mean nationally our governmental level to try to facilitate students as our sister countries have that so when I first met with you and I indicated to you publicly that I had made this offer to BVI and to the British government I indicated that we had done an audit and there were spaces for about 40 to 50 people in border late that the second thing was I said if in fact we needed to bring more people that we felt that we could take the free zone we have some empty warehouses there and we could have converted them temporarily into a prison means you can put Porta Luz we have brought in some additional security services and certainly I'm sure that the British and other people would have lent us forces on it so the capacity could have been potentially higher I also indicated that after making that offer that I had not heard back in terms of a number so the first request that we got was from Turks and Caicos which was for three prisoners and I'm bringing up questions because I think they're valid questions and so hopefully we can bring clarity to it that the valid question was why would they come here if they're British dependent states why wouldn't those people just be sent back to England I mean they certainly had sufficient time to have done that that was certainly an option on the table and it was the Premier's decision to try to keep the people in the Caribbean and the reason is because they also have an obligation to give what they call visitation rights and so they felt that keeping them here would allow them to fulfill that obligation easier so the initial request was for three while I was away the BVI then got back to us and I think it went between 19 and 24 so I think that that's about where we are is it 19 or 24 people in the 17 and 24 so we're certainly well below the number that we have capacity for and we're certainly willing to take more once it with fulfills that capacity and if it has to be more above that as I said to we would work with the those governments in making a facility in their free zone available I've not heard there any expectations that it would be much more than that but I just want to say to you that I can't give you one number it's a moving target and as the need arises we're certainly going to be here standing by to facilitate them in terms of education with the kids the great thing is there's a precedent established after the hurricane in Dominica sorry in Grenada Ivan in which form 4s and form 5s were adopted by the islands and the kids came to live here some of them here in Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the other islands so we've already initiated that in fact the Minister of Education is accompanying to me with me tomorrow on a trip to go and meet Prime Minister scared his cabinet to see if we can facilitate that we've also extended a request or support for women having babies you know these are simpler things but maybe not life doesn't stop and there are some some simpler things that maybe we forget so I've indicated to Dominica to the Prime Minister that Saint Lucia is Dominica whatever we can do to help we'll be there What has Saint Lucia done? Two tangible things we've done to assist Dominica Saint Lucia government? Well the first thing that we did was to open up a communications channel because Dominica was out we were in communications through VHS through some of the Hammond radio people here and as I said to immediately I mean we didn't even wait to open up Saint Lucia as a platform as a hub so teams of search dogs and experts to find people in landslides were based here just waiting to be able to get to Dominica because we didn't know the air status of the airport which I suspected would have not been operational so therefore the government of Trinidad immediately sent their helicopter which was based here in Saint Lucia that was the first thing the second thing that we've done is in terms of supplies so we basically met with the private sector here with the Ministry of Agriculture and had container loads of product going over in terms of water in terms of food supplies particularly non-perishable food supplies the next thing that that happened was the Bailey bridges so as they did an assessment the problem they were continuously having is they couldn't get access the whole country so they were the helicopter needed to bring things in but then helicopter needed to be able to carry things from the port to each of the different areas so the key was to try to get communication land communication or land access available as much as possible so we made that available there was the Ross School University we worked with the hotels association here customs and immigration to facilitate Canadians and Americans and everybody else from the school to come into Saint Lucia some of them had to spend a couple of nights while the transportation was being organized for them to be able to get out 1700 overall so you know for me we reacted as if it was Sufra in Saint Lucia whatever we could do we did it our firemen went over loose like people went over Moscow people went over everybody I mean we literally almost to a point didn't think of ourselves and we thought about Dominique we did it because I knew what was happening in the US territories and the British territories and that they would not have maybe been as responsive but I have to say to you that the Canadians and the Americans despite my my concerns did come to the table in a significant way and immediately I also have to say that the president of of Martinique mr. Marie Jean was amazing I mean he was over there immediately we worked collaboratively together to be able to facilitate people who were injured to get them out because clearly they were people who needed immediate medical assistance the helicopters I mean it was the Martinikens that sent a jet over a couple of times to try to do an audit of what was going on in the territory then sending over a helicopter and so we were working collaboratively together so we were intimately involved and remain intimately involved with what's taking place in Dominique. We've got a microphone. Yes Mr. PM. The general Andrew DeMiro. If St. Lucerne now has a sort of a rescue of whether for the short term or the long term would we be able to establish like a permanent base where you could facilitate these movements in and out and properly demand and security in place? Well I'm going to be able to get a better feel for that tomorrow. I'm going to be spending the day in Dominique but my initial assessments that I've been getting from third party people is that it's very very bad and it's going to take a while for Dominique to be able to recover so even when you think of it from an agricultural perspective you know even when we had Tomas you know people could still go out and find food there's nothing there all the leaves are gone so you're literally having to start all over again so there's not a sense that there can be this immediate recovery my understanding none of the major businesses opened up the hotels are gone so you're talking about the entire economy is destroyed and Dominique has a long road ahead then there's the migration problem so many people are leaving we're seeing the same thing in the BVI we're seeing the same thing in Anguilla we're seeing the same thing in St. Martin St. Thomas you know there was a study that was done by the IMF that showed that after these big disasters that the population decreases by on average five and a half percent so that's the next big problem is how do you keep your population there keep the confidence that's going so to your point I think that St. Lucia is going to have to play an important role and it's almost like we become an incubator and maybe some of the businesses move over temporarily to St. Lucia and we allow those companies to continue growing so that when the infrastructure gets back up in Dominique they can migrate back up to Dominique so it's almost like a plant you're putting in a pot you're nurturing it and then you're allowed to replant it we're doing the same thing with the BVI I mean I have a very long meeting I have to go to with Premier Orlando Smith about his financial services that St. Lucia is prepared to work with him and I don't want it to ever be seen that you know we're out trying to pillage people in the time of a disaster but I think that to your point we can become an incubator and we can allow some of those businesses to continue to flourish so that once those countries have gotten their feet under them again we can then transfer those businesses back into their destination. Do we have any other questions on the hurricane really? Yeah. Miguel quickly before we move on. PM, can you confirm whether the commercial court or COLA has been in here? Yeah you can. That's true. So it was one of the first things that happened when we were you know I wanted to thank the Chief Justice Justice Pereira she did an amazing job of being incredibly persistent in getting her judges out and they came to request whether they could transfer the commercial court to St. Lucia. We obviously immediately agreed and that facilitation has already taken place and again it's an incubator you know that's you know not intended to be a permanent move but once BVI can get its feet back up on the ground infrastructures there it'll be transferred back to the BVI. Okay. Thank you everyone. We will now move on to the second segment of our press conference Prime Minister we know you just came back from the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly. Most of us watched your presentation. Can you go through us parts of your presentation? Why you said what you said? What did we achieve at that session? And also we know you had several investment meetings in the U.S. and also when you proceeded to Canada. If you could take us through that. So after I got back to St. Lucia after visiting the BVI and Gwilla, St. Kitts in Antigua I was scheduled to have a meeting with American Airlines which had been scheduled prior to this event because we were trying to if you've seen the tourism arrivals for St. Lucia you would see that our arrivals are up 10% for the year land-based arrivals and the U.S. is up 6%. Canada has continued to grow and we have not even gotten into stride yet with our marketing program. So I really want to thank the minister and Agnes Francis and the group there because it's very difficult when you're going through a transition to also keep your eye on the ball. But I think they've done a remarkable job of doing two things at the same time. So we were trying to anticipate that we're seeing a growing demand from the U.S. and that we needed more capacity. So that was we were going up to meet with American. Agnes and the minister had already met with American Airlines. Given my background in the airline industry and obviously in tourism was to really reinforce what they had said to them. And there was people say well why are you wasting your time because those have already gone up. It's a whole new executive American Airlines and American Airlines had merged with U.S. Air. So it was important to reconnect with all those new executives because they hold our future in their hands. So on the way there I went to Cayman. I went to Cayman for two reasons. One obviously hot topic in the discussion today is St. Jude's. I had gotten a preliminary report on St. Jude's and after receiving that report I wanted to see what a hospital facility ought to look like. So I'm very glad I was able to go there. While I was there I was able to meet with the deputy premier talking about Cayman Airways, talked about financial services and talked about our closer linking with us and some of the problems that we had with the independent countries. So we then went to Turks and Caicos and Charlene is the new premier there, a big fan of hers and just to basically as chairman of OECS and on behalf of the prime minister Keith Mitchell as chairman of the CARICOM to go and just visit them because they had the hurricane there and minister Guy Joseph actually remained the night there and went through some tours. I then went to Dallas. I was hoping to have gone to Houston. It's the second time I was in the state of Texas after the hurricane, Harvey but my understanding is I'm now finally going to get to see them later in October. We had a very, very good meeting with American and afterwards I went to Philadelphia and again that was a schedule trip that had been prearranged. I was meeting with Jay who is the Pante who is the owner of the stars. So I wanted to get a post-mortem on what had happened and where we feel that we could go. And I have to say to you, he's an incredible business person. He owns over 3,000 franchises. He's doing all kinds of developments and extremely well respected and very connected. He put on a function for me with about 35 business people and also he made connections with the congressman and mayors from the Philadelphia area. So that was a very worthwhile endeavor and I'm going to be announcing some very exciting plans that we have with Jay and with the stars moving forward. So I mean very, very exciting plans for sublutia. At the UN, I had the opportunity obviously with a very clear mission in mind. One was to get the support necessary for this redesignation of our islands in terms of getting access to money. Secondly, where is the source of money going to come from? So can there be a special allocation of funds put on the table that we can access and then the third part of that is can we reduce the level of bureaucracy so that we can get the money quickly. What's happened to the world? Everybody's so concerned about corruption that the processes are actually more leaning towards corruption prevention and accountability and it is in terms of what the money was supposed to do in the first place. So the meeting started off with a very important meeting where we had a meeting with Boris Johnson from the UK. We met with the Americans, the deputy and the secretary was there. We had the French ambassador to the UN and also the minister of Foreign Affairs for Holland was also there. And it was a very good opportunity because they had the same problem we had. They were not allowed to take their development aid money and send it to their dependents because of that same classification. So I think that now that we had their attention it was much easier to get into the second and third part which is the source of monies and the bureaucracy. So there was an absolute commitment from that meeting that there would be a follow-up high-level meeting which was supposed to be in England but we recommended that that meeting take place in Washington DC which is now scheduled for the 14th of October in Washington DC. And so that meeting is going to be chaired by the World Bank but we'll have all the major countries in the world and I'm hoping that that's where the decision we made to support this initiative. Now it's important to note that when I met with the UN Secretary of General Secretary who used to be a minister in Portugal had indicated that there was precedence for what we were doing that Jordan which was also a middle-income country that when they had the migration from Syria the invasion whatever you want to call it the surge in migration from Syria they were then reclassified as a developing state to get access to funds. So it's for us to bring that information to the table and hopefully we can push. So we were able to get a lot of support at that opportunity. I had some friends of mine who worked at MSNBC and they called me up and asked me if I would do this interview. At the interview it was very important for me to learn from my past experiences. No matter how much we cry publicly and lament how much the hurricane is damaged and the impact on family lives it's not going to change how much money we're going to get. States like ours get money by making applications to development agencies. So they send down audit teams and everything else. But also as countries that are dependent on tourism that when you're out there saying there's a disaster at the same time what you're doing is saying to people stay away. So it's just catch 22. And so I kept on using the word that the Caribbean was resilient. That we are proud people. And that there is a brotherhood in the Caribbean. Because what you didn't want the people to believe that these are little independent countries on their own. You want them to know that there is a bigger network of people that are committed to being able to get them off the ground. I think that all too often we use those opportunities to promote ourselves. I don't mean individually but our own country. And I described it in all my meetings that the Caribbean is an ecosystem. Very tightly knit ecosystem. And that we're all dependent on each other. So if you take the cruise industry, if Puerto Rico is not working as a home port it means that the ships that are designated to the eastern Caribbean can't come. If there is not enough destination. So if USVI and Martin and BVI are not operating it's going to have an impact on us. I've already indicated that there are thousands of solutions and incensions and Grenadians and antigens who are living and working in those destinations who are now probably going to migrate home, migrate somewhere else. But meanwhile the remittances that they were sending back home are disappear. So that's how our ecosystem works. And so therefore we're all in this thing together. That's the same message I carried through on my UN speech. The twist in the UN speech was really to say this. The world has adopted the SDGs, 17 SDGs, special development goals. And my speech was to say that those are very valuable and very important goals that we ought to have. But if people can't put food on their plate if they don't have a roof over their head if they don't know where their kids are going to go to school if they don't have access to medical facilities I don't think they can be thinking about SDGs. They're dealing with the day-to-day crisis. And the UN was created in order to prevent a third world war. And the first world war and the second world war was caused because there wasn't dialogue. So the UN was to create an opportunity where there would be dialogue in which countries would be helped to resolve their problems that there could be a level of consensus. But in my mind that the greatest danger that we have moving forward is inequity. And should we not now have a measurement called a minimum standard of living that all people in the world deserve to have that? And shouldn't that be the priority of any one state to ensure that every single citizen has access to what we call basic human needs? Because we can't grow. So when you look at the migration problems when you hear that there's not 20 million Africans that are hungry, 20 million Africans that are starving and understand the desperation that that creates that a person who can't swim, their wife can't swim, their kids can't swim but they're prepared to get into a boat in hopes that they can make it to the other end and how many thousands of people because they must have heard the stories have drowned in attempting to do that and are still willing to take that chance. Is it fair to say that countries are coming to the UN to try to vote and discuss issues but their own people are starving? And are they really going to be interested in listening to all the other heavier talks? So it was really to put that out there and to try to get the world to start thinking of this reform of the UN from a very different way. So we always say that it's important before you design something you must understand what you're trying to achieve. So we say design before form. It's a very important concept, I truly believe it. So there is a reform, a movement taking place of which St. Lucia was a signatory to it. There was a meeting with President Trump and several of the world leaders to re-emphasize our support for that. I'm very happy that the general secretary who's in is also committed to that overall reform. And then at the UN meeting, I also had bilaterals. I had an incredible bilateral with the president of Estonia. And she's an amazing lady. I mean, I could have sat there for hours talking to her. She used to be an auditor for the EU. And Estonia has the first paperless government in the world. Three and a half million people. And what's interesting about their IT system is that everybody's information is available online but it's only accessible through permission. So if the state wants to get information from you, they must request it. So it is fully protective of your individual rights as a citizen. So I'm very much looking forward to following up dialogue with her in terms of seeing how we can get that transfer. The president, prime minister of Malta, another great guy, and going through the same problems that we're going through with CIP and correspondent bankings because they have a very aggressive CIP program over in Malta. And we've also agreed to be able to follow up in that regard. So following the UN, I had the opportunity to go to Canada. I had been scheduled prior to the hurricanes to go to Canada. And my first intention of the Canadian visit was to meet with the Canadian banks. So we were meeting with the governor of the central bank. We met with CIBC, with World Bank of Canada, and Bank of Nova Scotia. And it was a very interesting, enlightening meeting. And I'm looking forward to hopefully a lot of good things coming out of that. The primary thing, and I've received mixed reviews with the statement that our patrimony is connected to our credit rating. So I want to say to you, I stand by those words. It is absolutely true. The banks are having difficulty in this region predominantly because the biggest client that they have are governments. And because of the debt situation here, they can't lend any more money to the governments. But every time that the credit rating of a country drops, it has severe implications to them. So last week, Barbados' credit rating dropped to CCC. So it means the banks now either have to reduce the amount of loans that they have outstanding to the government, or they have to build up reserves to protect and cover the risk that they have on that. So it means that it's less money that they have to earn, they have to now occupy more money that can't go out and be lent. And it is having a huge cost implication. The fact that the country, so OECS is very lucky and that we have one monetary council, and generally we tend to harmonize our banking regulations. But Barbados has a separate regulation, Trinidad has a separate regulation, Bahamas and Jamaica have separate regulations. And so for a very small population, there's multitude of regulations that they have to go through, and each of these things are very, very costly to the banks. Now, the banks play an important role in the development of our countries. And so I think that we were able to share with them some of the things that we're doing at the OECS level and they were able to share some things with us. And then we also had a long discussion about CIP funds because the Canadian banks have been reluctant to accept CIP funds. But I think that in the discussions there were some clear misunderstandings and there is a follow-up meeting that's going to be taking place with the central bank and with some of our CIP chairpersons with their risk managers to hopefully resolve some of those problems moving forward. The last thing is we met with Prime Minister Pierre Jetson Trudeau. The intent really here was Canada used to be our big brother and they've disappeared, along with the Americans and the British. And so it was an outreach to appeal to them to reconsider coming back into the Caribbean. I have to say that he was extremely receptive. I had an opportunity meeting with his minister of international trade afterwards but I also met with four elected officials on the Ontario board who were all Caribbean. I mean, one was Grenadian heritage, two of them were Jamaican, and the fourth one was Bahamian. In fact, the Premier's mother is from the Bahamas. So I felt that on the areas of health, education and security that there's going to be a tremendous amount of follow-up on the Ontario level and on the national level in terms of resources and a big brother. Okay, do we have any questions on any of those meetings? HDS? Just on the CIP program. Just introduce us. Sheffield Gillard, DBS News. Mr PM, not much has been said about the DSH in recent times. Nor has there been any progress on the site that the work has commenced on. The restruct is said to have been ready by this December, this year. Can you give us an update on the pull of the Caribbean project? The pro-Caribbean is very much alive and I think that when I say some things, I think that sometimes we don't get into the detail of understanding what I'm talking about. When I talk about the re-engineering of our civil service and of our organizations, they're not working. It took eight months to get an EIA approved for the DSH project. It took ten months to get an EIA approved for the established site project. Not planning approval, you know. The EIA. And when you look at the horse racing track, we're talking about 400 horses on a grass track with metal railing on the inside. And previously there was 400 cows. So in terms of the capacity of the land to be able to absorb the excretement of 400 cows or 400 horses, I gotta imagine they're about the same. So we're not going to be able to change St. Lucia if that's the process. It's almost as if everything in this country has become political. And so I think politics has a role to play. And I certainly not going to be the one to really road things through a process. But to make sure that the country is being protected, there is a much more professional and quicker way that has to happen. And we've employed UNOPs to assist us in redesigning the development control authority and those approval processes. The second part is that we had an individual who owns land or sorry, lease land from Inves St. Lucia who we were in negotiations with since November of last year to come to an amicable solution for him to be moved from that area in cash compensation, land compensation. Unfortunately it got to the point where we had to do a compulsory acquisition. And let's be clear, the compulsory acquisition doesn't mean that he's left high and dry. The compulsory acquisition means that there is a tribunal that will make a decision on what the compensation is. We have still been trying to negotiate an amicable deal. And because he has not moved yet the project isn't a standstill. To ensure that all is done, those processes are... Well as I said, we've hired UNOPs to assist us in looking at to redesign the development control authority. So part of the development control authority process is what we call referral agencies. So we have to send out first of all the terms of reference to the referral agencies. That takes a period of time. Then once the study comes back it goes back to them to be able to evaluate to come back. But when I look at many of these referral agencies the question is do they have the capacity to do that? Or is it that they become prescribed amount of time that they have to hold it before that they leave it? They can hold up the process. So other countries basically continue to include that dialogue but give people time restrictions. And also there's a clear evaluation of the of the referral agency's capacity to participate in the process. Do they have the technical staff? If they don't have the technical staff are they going to now hire people to be able to do the evaluation on their part? And then the question becomes the government agencies which are supposed to be doing a lot of these work and have already done it is that all really necessary? And as I said to you that and I think the public would appreciate this as well because this is not just affecting larger projects in San Lucia but individuals who are building homes are also complaining at the length of time it's taking for planning and the time it takes. So these are some of the things that we're going to have resolved. We're working on getting them resolved very very quickly and clearly be undermined if in fact this is the level of bureaucracy that we're going to have to be able to achieve what we want to achieve. PM I want to focus on two things. The first one your trip to the Cayman you said that you were part of that was to monitor or to observe on the hospital and the healthcare system. News just coming into me up until yesterday was that there was a medical conference over the weekend the SLMDA held a medical conference about the concerns which they seem to be think it's true so you can either confirm or let us know whether it's true is that a company in the Cayman and to be exact it's City Health Health City is being tipped to take over or should I have a better term the operations at the OKEU can you confirm to us whether this is being considered whether they have something to do with completion so we have been in discussions with several organizations they being one of them to manage and operate OKEU so I mean we've been open with that there is a Canadian firm they came at the health city firm there is a French group so there are several groups that have put proposals together that we're looking at the former government had passed a new bill to basically operate OKEU as a statutory body so very similar to St. Jude's and I think that that's that's the discussion when I went on my trips I've been going around to see different ministries and different services and I went to Victoria you know when you go to Victoria and you go to St. Jude's the administration operating procedures is night and day I mean take a simple thing there are 17,000 people in St. Lucia who have health care insurance when they go to St. Jude's St. Jude's is making sure that they bill those insurance companies to collect the money that's not happening at Victoria I look at the accounting system at Victoria I look at the IT system at Victoria I look at the inventory system at Victoria right so the fact is is that I don't believe just taking all the staff from Victoria and moving them to OKEU because it's a new hospital is going to solve the problem there has to be a culture and so if I look here in St. Lucia the culture that existed at St. Jude is much better in terms of its own sustainability so it's St. Jude is operating a facility that was not a built or designed build a purposely built facility it was a stadium go there for yourself and see the cleanliness see the aptitude now that's not to say that people at Victoria are doing a bad job I'm not accusing or throwing any individual person under the bus at Victoria but I think that the operating system that they have isn't conducive to producing the best health care service at the best cost for solutions so that is why in part we're looking at that and then the second part of that is there's a revenue stream for health care and that one it is equitable and that's why we're looking to introduce a health care insurance that every single solution will have insurance regardless of what walk of life you in so it means that everybody has equitable access to the hospitals and to health care services but it also means that if you have a PPP project and you have private sector people that there's a revenue stream because right now I certainly wouldn't want to run anything in Salusha with the hopes that the government in Salusha was going to pay me for my services so the answer is they are one of the companies we've made no final decision at this point and until we know the details of the health care insurance it will be difficult to complete that but we had looked at the possibility of getting them to run the radiology center and I am pushing very hard to get the dialysis room up and running at the OKU as fast as I possibly can so the advantage of what they're offering from a radiology center is that the maintenance of the equipment but more importantly that when the photographs are taken it goes to India to experts to give you the analysis so I'm heartbroken when I see solutions go to get an X-ray and they come to you and they're carrying this sheet because nobody's been able to read it nobody can interpret what their problems are they can't be diagnosed so that's as important as it taking the photograph or the X-ray it's equally important to be able to have the services to be able to be the diagnosis if I get to my serving question can I ask is the EU OK with that type of arrangement that sort of proposal of having a private or PPP take part of manage a hospital that's basically financed my second question was with the owner of the signature stars you met with him you would be aware that just recently there was some complaints from service providers that they have not been paid for their services was this addressed I didn't know that at the time but I will be addressing it with him are there any other questions in that vein before we move on because we spent a lot of time on this section quickly we are coming to that towards the end do you want to let's just go we want to talk about the economy we want to talk about growth prospects we have very ambitious plans for the economy what I wanted you to do Prime Minister is very briefly give us an overview of where we are and are we still on target in terms of the direction we want to take with the economy the more visible things are the area of tourism so as I said to you tourism arrivals are up 10% the good part is that some of our higher yielding markets are also up significantly the cruise industry is up 22% all indications are in our advance bookings that that's going to continue to continue to grow wind jammer landing was semi closed because they were doing refurbishments house and beach club was semi closed so it means that there is another 60 rooms from those two properties that are going to come available this winter and then you have harbour club which is due to open up in Christmas that's another 117 rooms and Royalton continues to find its feet every day so I'm extremely encouraged by where we're going from a tourism perspective on the offshore financial services the headquarters act that we put in place did you sell made the announcement or about to make the announcement so we're talking about almost 200 people that are going to be moving into San Lucia an international bank is also coming there are two major law firms that are trust law firms that are also looking to come into San Lucia a major construction company in the region is looking to move their headquarters to San Lucia so that headquarters act has actually been going well and the word is getting out our CIP program was behind and was behind because of processing we were taking too long to get through the approvals and the levels of communication the feedback I was getting in the marketplace was not great so I'm very happy that we have Mr. Nesta Alfred who is an extremely experienced regulator he was with the financial services he was heavily involved with insurance regulation he's done compliance with banks so he has just completed a trip to Asia and Dubai and the feedback is fantastic so I'm very encouraged in that moving forward that we're going to now start seeing the pace that we want in terms of new investments the Sandals Group are putting in 400 suites at Sandals near Sandals Grand we have the Sabochab project which will be breaking ground before the end of this year which will be breaking ground early next year we're also going to be announcing the project out of Canals very soon so they've just received all their final approvals so that will be for 350 rooms and a golf course there is a major project that we're working on for shock which could potentially be a 400 room hotel in addition to that we are close to being able to get the submissions from hopefully at least 3 possibly 4 groups for so now that we have the money it's really to select the group that's going to construct the project for us we've had very good meetings with Carnival in particular with regards to a home port facility in viewport that is to fix up the facility and get it operational so by 2020 the goal would be to have that fully operational and that does not obviously include the timelines that we have in place for the DSH project we will be announcing very soon that we've been able to secure financing to do about 100 million US dollars in road rehabilitation so the dollar 50 tax that we've put on which will be in a lock box will now go to help fund that 100 million dollars we're going to looking to get work to our sub-card to our local contractors as fast as possible but one of the things that we absolutely want to do is to make sure that when we're rebuilding the roads we're putting wires under the ground so we're starting to build in that resilience for the future we have a work program for the feeder roads the other one I'm excited about is our banana production is up around 20 to 30 percent for the year so far and we've seen no change in our fresh produce I'm a bit concerned about the fresh produce in that the market for the northern islands has become vulnerable but I'm hoping that we can see a return to normalcy as much as possible so all in all we're very happy as to where we are thus far but clearly the bigger things that the public wants to see in terms of real changes in the employment will start coming once the construction project start getting off the ground Ojo Lab is open but will be open in it's new home I think that we've got 35 people to begin with and then that's going to continue to grow so the initial part of the project is to get all the kings out and the mechanisms working but when I had the meetings up in Austin and met with some of the other potentially participating companies I was very optimistic in terms that we're on a winner here if you pick up the Economist you pick up newspapers literally every day there's discussions about artificial intelligence and call centers so I am very very encouraged by those things so I would say to you all in all I am very happy where we are but at the same time I am mindful mindful sorry that there's still too many people who have not gotten work yet and that some of the things that I'd like to see changed have not changed and I'm just asking people to recognize it I can't do it in one fell swoop we had a major problem with debt in this country we have to turn over a billion dollars of bonds this year and almost 800 million next year so that really puts the hamstrings the government severely we are hopefully going to be able to recommence our programs with the Taiwanese so we've been in a lot of discussions and the discussions with the Taiwanese have been simple I want to see more I want to see more investment I want to know that San Luzha is part of their strategic plan I want to be able to create trade agreements and financial agreements that would allow more investment to take place in San Luzha because we are in the same time zone as North America and so we can become an incubator for smaller companies that can eventually move to Taiwan in their offshore facilities and very encouraged by the discussions that we've had in making that happen do we have questions on this section chef? the recent disaster in the region how are we benefiting from the cruise ship divergence and not only the cruise ships but the hotel sectors it's always a ticklish thing for me to talk about because I would hate to think that we're growing or have any dependency on somebody else's failure so I think this example is a great example so we've seen a request for 8 or 10 increase in calls for this year and another 5 for next year but there's a bigger threat we're too far south so if Puerto Rico is not operating as a hub as a home port it means that we're going to operate out of Miami if it's going to be out of Miami they're only going to make it as far south as Antigua so I think St. Kitts is an example has seen an increase in 75 calls so basically all the St. Martin calls have gone into St. Kitts so what that tells me is what we're doing in terms of building the facilities in the south is critical in creating our own home port and making ourselves, when we talk about resilience it's not just about the physical resilience it's about the economic realities that are out there from a tourism perspective I'm concerned that the world thinks the Caribbean is damaged now how do you come up with a marketing campaign to push your destination without people thinking that you're trying to take advantage of your brothers and sisters so I'm happy to say to you that we've been working behind the scenes with the Prime Minister of the Bahamas to put together a major tourism marketing campaign so you know we've been trying for a long time to be able to make that happen I'm also saying to you that I'm encouraged by discussions that I've had with the FCCA and particularly led by Mickey Harrison that there's a strong likelihood that the FCC and the cruise industry are going to join that initiative there's going to be a major meeting in Jamaica at the end of November and I'm hoping that we would have wrapped everything up in a major signatory at that point there are two major organizations that are putting on concerts with celebrities that help highlight what's happening in the Caribbean but the critical one is that we have an online website that gives people clarity as to who is damaged and who is not damaged so I think that we will see some pickup in business but my goal is is that we continue to see an increase in business and we make sure that that's sustainable going down the road I was starting to get a little worried we were getting no questions from the ladies Janelle it's Janelle Norville Choice TV given that the developer of the ESH is perceived to be a spectator in the marketplace what sort of guarantee does the government have that he's able to front the course of the first phase and also as it relates to the first phase of the project has there been some finalization because last week you said that there was still two aspects that were on the table for negotiations so have we finalized that? Just yesterday we had a very long meeting with his team so I think we've hopefully finalized the last draft everything is going to his lawyers and to our attorney general and hopefully that we'll be able to sign very very soon on a new supplementary agreement part of that supplementary agreement has been to break down the project because I think that we're all getting panicky here because this is a huge project and we think that they're all one person and so it's really divided out into its separate component so it's very clear what DSH is doing as individual investors and what role they're playing in terms of planners because remember I said to you the government solution has engaged them not financially as yet to help us put together a master plan that we're now able to go out and get other people to be able to come and invest in so we're very close to finalizing that and we will have a signing and we'll be very public like we were with range about the details of the agreement that we have but I'm very encouraged in the direction we're going and I'm very satisfied that they're bringing their own money to the table and that there are financial commitments so there is a guarantee from the developer to the government that he's able to fund the first phase, the money upfront I want to say a guarantee he's putting the money up for the first phase of the project so I'm not the one spending the money all I'm doing is providing the lease so the horse racing track he will front the money and there will be a mechanism for that to be repaid the ownership of the horse racing track is ours but he's fronting the money for that he's also going to be putting up the money for a hotel, an apartment building and also the business complex that he's going to be building on site A we're also working now on site C which is the Iuparata site which is in terms of reclamation that's where the marina is going to go that's where the cruise ship facility is going to be going and also we're looking to be able to put a hotel park and the hotel park is really infrastructure for a subdivision and then we sell off the individual lots so solutions, people from the region people internationally will be able to buy those lots very much like a south beach and be able to build the facilities final question in this category during the last sitting of the House of Assembly the member for Castree South while presenting his negative motion did point out or he claimed rather that the range developers agreement was not in accordance with CIP regulations and he did ask that you follow the right procedure as the opposition will react now of course when you stood you did not address it the CIP which was seen as arrogant in some quarters but could you just speak to the member for Castree South's claim regarding the regulations so CIP doesn't control the money it has nothing to do with CIP regulation CIP is just a processing agent they approve the application the funds are collected by CIP and then transferred into what they've called an economic fund what I kept on laughing at Mr. Hillier for because it's the hypocrisy and they throw out terms and they throw out things and make it look out to be and we said it when we were in opposition you came to the House after you passed the act you never included the regulations of the CIP you said it was not necessary we'll come to the House and we'll debate it at some time he never did they brought it in as an SI so it was never a debate on the regulation we argued that there was no regulations economic fund so there is no regulations on the fund the fund goes in and it's for the government to determine where it wants to send the funds to if the government decides it wants to take those funds and give it in the form of a loan to a developer and I'm getting now the land to her point as collateral for that land so it means I'm taking CIP funds that would have normally gone into the real estate component where all the real estate component works that you approve the project so there was four projects that the former government approved under the CIP project they didn't even adhere to their own standards all those projects were supposed to have planning approval had to be sufficiently advanced in order to know that they were going to happen none of them were Boca doesn't have planning approval a drawing of what the project is going to be they approved the range project under the CIP there was no submission to DCA Sabusha, same thing so what we're doing differently and I've said it repeatedly is that we're passing legislation to create now a what's it called a sovereign fund and in that sovereign fund will be all the regulations all be the rules will be independently managed because I firmly believe the fund should not be going through the real estate portion because when the money goes through the real estate portion they're getting the benefit the developer gets the benefit of your sovereign wealth he's getting that money capital free that's free money that they're getting, $300,000 and I'm saying to you why should the government leverage the sovereignty of the state to be able to get that money whereas I'm saying let's put the money into the donation allow the money to go into the economic fund and now if I want to I can lend that money to the developer because it means that the state is getting the developer plus they're getting their capital back versus me saying I let you take this money and I close my eyes and I hold my breath and I hope that the development takes place and in fact only one major developer has succeeded in that model and that's actually range so you go around the Caribbean you see that there are all these half-started buildings that are not finished simply because there's no accountability in that regard so if Mr. Hiller was truly interested in CIP he would have never been the chairman of CIP not only because of his involvement in the Jafali affair but he knew and he was intending to become a politician so he is the one and the Labour Party is the one that have politicized the CIP and I'm doing everything I can to depoliticize it the chairman he's not political everybody who knows Ryan DeVaux can't tell me they've ever seen Ryan DeVaux at political meetings or heard Ryan expel his preference one party over another party I've put him there why because he took a bank from Saint Lucia, a development bank from Saint Lucia and he grew it from zero to a major bank so he has the experience in that area I've taken a CEO that has all the experience in the world in doing due diligence and trying to professionalize the staff we're going to separate the marketing component from CIP away from the CIP and put it in with invest because there are people who are obviously concerned that you're out marketing and so in nuance of the world today people see that as a conflict particularly in a highly regulated sector so I'm committed to being transparent to the people of Saint Lucia we're committed to seeing this program work and we're committed that at the end of the day solutions will be able to go to the sovereign fund and see funds a great example is Norway and that's who I'm taking my lead from a sovereign fund that has a trillion dollars in it and all they do is the interest off of that sovereign fund is what goes into the recurrent expenditure whereas in Trinidad the vast majority of the money that they were earning from oil went into recurrent expenditure and so here's how it hurts you the revenues four years ago from oil in Trinidad was 3.2 billion US dollars and today it's a half a million and so that's the problem that's happening so you've had now four years in which there has been a dramatic shortfall in revenue if that revenue had been going into their sovereign fund because they have a sovereign fund they wouldn't be in the problem they're here today and I want to make sure that we build up this sovereign fund which is like a big sync fund and that if there's a disaster or if we need anything we can look to ourselves and I've always learned in life if you can take care of yourself then other good things start happening too we are pressed for time I did want to go on to social issues but Shekel just asked that question considering a few islands lower the CIP threshold lower than ours how is that going to affect our program it makes the program very competitive there's no intentions in our part at this time to lower it any more than it is now I want to say to solutions that our intention is to make Solution one of the most desirable places in the world to live and that people are looking to become a citizen of Solution because they want to because they think it's a great place so you've got to start somewhere so we've got to let people know that we're in the business of the CIP that's why the price is where it is because the cost of me going out to market that idea initially would be very expensive so as we now start seeing traction taking place the new campaign that we're going to be putting out to promote Samusha I'm talking about how great Samusha is and also fixing it up getting the hospitals running getting the infrastructure going making view for one of the most desirable places to live those are the things that are going to help because a brand position is only a promise so we have to be committed to making Samusha one of the best places to want to live in but we must do it first for solutions and then whoever else comes in here benefits from the standard that we're getting Prime Minister we have a lot of social ills that are affecting our country right now you know the crime figures we've had over four seeming homicides we know that there's a correlation between our social programs and crime in terms of social transformation and also how we responding directly to the crime if you could give us a brief overview of this before we take some questions in that area so really quickly we are in the process of opening up a temporary halls of justice as we've discussed on Barnard Hill that will allow us to put all of our courts in one area which we think that will substantially improve the dispensation of justice right now it's a disaster people don't even know which building they go to and every day that we move into a new building we end up with mold and we're losing a lot of time and as I told you from day one the goal here is the criminals must know that if they get caught they're going to be tried quickly and convicted quickly so the first part of it is get my courts working so you have currently a situation where judges don't even have chambers people don't even know which courthouse they're going to go to and even when they go to the courthouse the jury and the judge are literally sitting on each other the person who is the accused person is literally in the face there isn't the security that's necessary for those judges magistrates don't have offices magistrates are working out of their cars magistrates don't have security so the goal is to really put in a proper facility that will allow us to smooth that out for the police so in terms of investigation we've got to improve the ability of our policemen to be able to investigate and so the Canadians and the British have been huge supports in that area then there is now the DNA lab so we've got that back up and running but we want to be able to improve the overall facilities of the DNA lab and also to do it at an affordable rate so I was really impressed when I was in Philadelphia and I got to meet with the mayor there and there were the first police station to receive a new piece of equipment that processes DNA right at the police station in four hours so the technology is getting better and more affordable so I want to make sure that we skip the past generations and we can leapfrog into the new generations the other component to that is policing itself the population will see and feel a greater presence of policemen which starts with traffic so no tolerance to traffic violations and make sure that we're actively out in the streets fighting crime with force particularly the type of crime that we have we don't believe is going to work young people who feel that they've been disenfranchised by the system relatively or to people harassing them meaning they already give up on the system they don't think the system cares or is compassionate when you go around and start hassling them all you're doing is convincing them that the system is against them and it's not getting to the source of the problem but the source of the problem isn't the social aspect of it and the solution is not going to be immediate so it's about changing the value chain that we have too many young girls who have a child under the age of 15 second child before they're 17 a third child before they're 18 or 19 a third child by the time they're 21 and that this is now generational so this is not first generation not second generation but third generation so who is bringing up these young guys who is bringing up these other young girls in these households the mothers are just trying to survive they need to be much more of a compassion because that problem becomes our problem and it becomes even worse when that child moves away from the rural area and moves into the city and becomes anonymous their new family becomes the gang and so going out and killing somebody or robbing somebody is to make an impression not out of need so we've got to be cognizant of what our problem is and how we're going to be able to resolve this problem so the after school programs that we're putting together are critical so once we've made a commitment and we have made a commitment to do it the next thing is how do you do it so we've got Don Lockerbie many of you may or may not know him he was a gentleman that did all the venues for the World Cup cricket and works with a huge FFF&E company out of Miami they did the Atlanta Stadium recently they're going to be doing their Raiders so obviously a tremendous amount of experience is done an audit of all our facilities in Salusha I think that the last count was 150 sporting facilities in Salusha so how are you going to fund programs and connect all those facilities to have a proper after school program so bringing back clubs in Salusha so it's not simply by saying you're going to have a club many people don't even know how to run a club the chairperson the treasurer the secretary how do we keep everybody there and then what are the clubs going to be working on so each club in our mind has to be primary school students secondary school students and then a senior level and then we need to help them with the coaching so that from the hours of three o'clock until six o'clock that people can go to their club these different age groups and they can play football, they can play basketball they can play sports but it's about now training and getting people up to scratch to be able to run these clubs to be able to make sure that we have the coaches and we continue to train the coaches then it's about running the leagues so the transportation the food making sure that they're leagues and if you're going to have a club system that you have a zonal program where you have zonal competitions then you have a regional competition getting kids to become more competitive so that's what those clubs are so a very good example is if you go up to the swimming center at Rodney Bay I think there's about four clubs there and each of those clubs have those different levels and even in those levels so at the primary level you have beginning, you have intermediate and you have advanced so this has to be a very structured process to make sure that kids have somewhere to go critical to that is improve the overall level of competition get our national sports in those levels to be able to work and pick disciplines that allow kids to get a tertiary level education so I mean we got a report yesterday shocking 7% of the kids in St. Lucia have a tertiary level education 36% only have a primary school level education and 34% have a 44% have a secondary school level it's dismal and so the curriculum that we have in education is a misfit and then the standard of education is also a misfit so when I feel it, I go to my constituency I go to other people's constituencies I see the state of the schools that are 50 years old or older and we've not spent money for years on maintaining these schools so I'm being asked as the minister of finance make monies immediately available which those funds are not necessarily available but I believe that the curriculum needs to change and before you design or build any new buildings or fix up the buildings, you must understand what that curriculum is and so if you're going to change the design you know that you're changing the design of the buildings and we're building schools for the future so what I've tasked the ministry of education to do is give me a sample school for the future so when I go to other places like in Canada and kids are on iPads and the stuff is in the cloud and you see now schools where the sitting is in clusters and the interaction with the teachers is completely different because you're teaching communication you're teaching kids how to look our roles of classes and the way that we're teaching we're teaching kids how to memorize and so design matters so design before form and I know there's an urgency but we don't have enough money to keep reinventing the wheel over and over and over again and I'm putting tremendous pressure on the civil service that are being disobedient but they themselves have lost how to think nobody wants to change everybody talks about changes necessary everybody will agree with you what we're doing isn't working but nobody wants to change nobody's going to take the time to figure out a new structure, a new way to do it and I'm saying we don't have all this money I need more productivity from the same money that we're spending and I say this to you because the social program is important it requires funds we can stretch the lottery imagine the lottery money gets $600,000 a month if you had 34 facilities and each facility had four clubs and each club had four coaches that would cost I think it was twice as much money as we're currently collecting just for the pay the coaches so it seems like a lot of money and what I've said is I want the lottery funds not to be going into the construction of buildings or fields, what I want to see the lottery money go into is the support of programs and these are the kinds of programs you want to sit in so I'm hoping, not hoping, I truly believe that between what we're doing in justice what we're going to be doing with the after school program and what we're going to be doing in developing youth entrepreneurship that those things will go a long way in really changing our own belief about crime because the people of San Lucia must see crime as an enemy Do we have any questions based on what the Prime Minister just said or in this vein of the microphone Yes Mr. PM my queries relation to and social welfare Mr. in the light of the obsession of crime, we've seen the prevalence of young persons in modern crime now what sort of measures will be taken to be for social security we have a lot of school dropouts when these kids drop out of school there is no track system as to what they into, what they and should the social welfare people be more on the field in terms of keeping tabs on these kids and relating to the police department who is a dangerous element and also taking into account our national security So what I think of social welfare I think of people who are poor I think of the elderly whose pensions cause them to struggle there just isn't enough money to be able to go by in terms of how we're going to make sure that they reach that minimum standard of living that they deserve and we are looking at that meaning that we're subsidizing people by reducing the price of rice flour sugar but everybody is benefitting from that but not everybody needs it so think of how much money we're spending and supporting a whole bunch of people who can afford to pay for rice flour sugar and that money could have actually been going to even give greater support to the people who need so we're saying we want to put a direct social program in place and we're working on making that happen and I'm looking forward to getting the presentation from the Ministry of Equity when it comes to that with regards to the young people and work this is why we're saying that the immediate thing we should be doing is working on skills so kids who are not making it out of secondary school or dropping out in don't go past primary and are not let's train them with skills and I mean we can put skills programs in within six months we can give people construction so when we looked at the situation at Royalton why is it that 50% of the people came from outside and it was such a high unemployment rate it was because the type of construction that we're using now was a new method and our workers didn't have that skillset so that's why we want to particularly in the south this training program we're putting together is include construction the hospitality training that we're putting in the skillset training that we're doing at Ojo Labs so we believe that shorter term training that costs less money the people that need it will pay for it the people that can afford to pay they sign it off on their wages so when they get back to work it's a lesser amount to be able to repay on the overall thing so I have to say to you the biggest impact we can make is on skills training right now but there's no point in me going through those skills training if at the same time I'm not creating the jobs and I think that you know when you listen to some of the discourse out there I think we all get very confused on one hand everybody's complaining about the standard of living I don't have enough money and then we're talking about development and the conflicts the development create in terms of whether it's the environment or patrimony or anything and we've got when we're making a decision we have to look at all those things and take them into consideration but right now we need jobs and when I look physically at Saint Lucia it has a tremendous amount of capacity physical capacity and human capacity to be able to grow and because of our location because of our size the choices that we have of things that we can do are limited and so we already have a head start in tourism so for the foreseeable future that is going to be a big component of what we're doing agriculture we have a strong heritage of agriculture we're out there supporting it we're very happy to hear that the bananas are finally going to France and we're opening up a new market the fresh produce the new marketing board that we're going to be putting in all of those things are to be able to strengthen the agricultural sector that takes land that currently is unproductive and makes it productive and then in terms of diversification we're sitting here the offshore business so by getting the headquarters act in place making some changes to our financial laws to encourage more financial transactions the the headquarters act bringing companies that are going to need lawyers and accountants and strong administrative people is creating jobs for the future and so that when young people are now getting those jobs getting training that immediately they're going to see the benefit of that so we're seeing too many young people who are going away to get a degree coming back home thinking I've got a degree I'm going to start at this level and find out they're not the rate of return on that degree isn't there and so we've got to find new jobs that can now absorb tertiary level graduates into our economy I wanted to end Prime Minister by just returning quickly to an issue that has been popping up throughout our conversation we did a recent media tour of the St. Jude hospital site and it was very alarming some of the things we saw also was alarming were some of the numbers that came out from the consultant engineer in terms of how much we've already spent on the hospital can you give the people of St. Lucia before we take just a few questions from the media an idea of what we're dealing with and where we're going St. Jude's a very sad story and I think that you know when the Honorable Stevenson King was Prime Minister he started this thing in his wildest dreams when he started it that he thought that seven years later we would still be here you know so we had a fire nobody thought of the stadium being in operation that long and so and here we are seven years later $118 million and I have to ask ourselves how did we get here so for me there will be there was an audit that was done a physical audit and it clearly showed there were major mistakes that were made so we've now hired a law firm that is preparing cases against those individuals and those companies we're also hiring a forensic auditing firm to be able to track the expenditures where they came from who gave authorities to be able to help support that particular case put that aside because that's not going to change and that's going to be ongoing but meanwhile we have a crisis how do we resolve that crisis and so the the report that was given to me is basically saying that it's going to take a lot more money and a lot more time to fix up the current building and make it operational so on the basis of that I've now looked at what my alternatives are and I've reached out to several different people I've had ideas of my own my captain has had ideas in which I'm hoping that over the next couple of weeks that we can come to some kind of conclusion and make a presentation to the public of submission on how we're going to move forward but it's not an easy decision on how we're going to do it and meanwhile time is ticking the facilities at the adequate I don't think anybody is denying that they're inadequate but they have lasted for the long period of time are there things that we can do now that we know that we're going to be there for a little bit longer to make the situation more comfortable and then secondly in moving forward so when I heard I know this is the world that we live in Minister Joseph said in presenting the report that the report said that they would have to demolish aspects of the building in order to be able to move forward I have said that Mrs. Mary Isaac said that and all of a sudden it comes out that we're demolishing the building now why would we demolish the building so I can say to the public of submission categorically there is no option that I know of that calls for the entire demolition of the building and building a new building options where it says maybe I use the building for something else and I build a new hospital that is a possibility but I have to look at the cost I have to look at the time I have to look at all those implications and then we will make a decision as quickly as we can to move forward I have to say to you that we've taken this time because the every angle to potentially allow us to move into the existing building is what we started off with and every time we think that we've found a solution we're going to have a problem whether it be electrical whether it be the size of the hallways that you can't get the equipment in and all of a sudden you start asking yourself okay I have to spend the money to do this it's going to take me this period of time is that the best way right now to proceed but it's a very unfortunate situation that we have found ourselves in I take full responsibility but I take full responsibility and my cabinet takes full responsibility for moving forward and it will make sure that we get the most cost effective and quickest solution that we possibly can for the people of Samusha but more importantly give them a hospital that they're going to be very proud of and one that's going to be really sustainable and operationally very effective Sheffield you had a question on St. Jude quickly now and then we'll wrap up one quick one okay why the audit which was conducted on St. Jude's not be officially handed to the engineers association of Samusha to get analysis from them as to what transpired and the way forward especially when as it relates to the hundred million dollar figure which is said to be which is said is needed to complete the hospital without any breakdown as to how that figure was there right so the company that we used is a company that's a solution based company that are highly regarded by CDB so in fact if you check with CDB they will tell you incredibly how effective and how professional this company is in addition to that the company hired independent auditors so the company local company only did the engineering aspect of it they had other people that came in to do the technical components to it there have been several presentations that have taken place and I'm satisfied that the quality of the work that's been done is pretty phenomenal and so the details that you're talking about are there so every single cost as to what it would be and why it has to be all that's worked out so I can tell you for me politically politically I would have loved to have the building open already that was priority number one absolutely priority number one but again if we're going to be creating a world-class destination and we want world-class healthcare because we've said affordable quality healthcare is what we think all solutions deserve that according to the report that the current design in the building will not be able to deliver that and that because the building is so spread out from an operational cost perspective and that's why I went to Cayman I said you know what let me go and see what the difference is for myself so we went to Cayman same size 104 beds exactly the same square footage 100,000 square feet had three wings and it had one big quarter down the middle so the entire hospital is accessible internally where all the beds are upstairs there's all pneumatic drops and two with the air in it so when they take a blood sample it goes straight down the pneumatic straight to the lab the whole thing is completely interfaced in terms of where the building is in terms of the administrative side all the support it's simple and they spent the same amount of money that we've spent so this is my frustration it should be everybody's frustration and I think that that's why people were having a difficulty in understanding it we brought the media there the people who did the study were there with you and I'm happy to do it again and again that you can go there and you can see here's what this is going to cost this is why this is not going to work I mean you saw upstairs where the operating lab was going to be you saw the ramp for yourself think of pushing up a gurney with all the equipment or with a gurney in which you have somebody who's holding the drip and another person who's holding the person's pulse where's the space our local engineer association should have some sort of input on the matter why is that? because they're an association I don't understand how they would be involved the gentleman who did it is a certified engineer and not only that there's a person that is doing engineering work in San Lucia throughout the Caribbean and in the world so when I went to CDB unsolicited they said we would not know what we would do about this guy he's involved in so many different projects do you know how many people he has employed with him? why is it that we have such a great difficulty in having confidence in what is San Lucia? and what I'm not going to do is just because a government hires a particular firm doesn't make them a political hack where's the credibility? if that's the case do you want me to go back and start questioning all the other things in which NLBA was involved in? every design that they do should we now get the architectural firm association to review what they have done? the question is is he a certified proper engineer? does he have a substantive company? does he have the capacity to be able to do the job? is he a professional? who did he bring in? what was the expertise that he brought in to be able to make the allegations he said? because it's all documented so the person that is on the account is him and he will have to sit on the stand during the cases and be the state's witness as to what they've done wrong and he's going to have to justify it and he's prepared to do that and the fact is is he's a professional he's not this idea that we all believe I would beg the media pleading with the media don't take the narrative if somebody gives you a narrative if somebody gives you the narrative do your own background check is there any information that you know of that would substantiate the claim that his company is political? it's not let's get a question over here good day Mr. Pien this is my first time here it's quite the experience but let me just depart from what we've been discussing could you introduce yourself? Alvin Charles, the Caribbean's leading print and online news publication the star I thought that we would have been discussing impacts or C slash impacts which is why we did a little bit what what limitations Mr. Pien if any and this is perhaps a question better posed to the DPP perhaps even the national security minister or the AG perhaps but the buck stops if you and I'm certain that you will not run away from this question what limitations if any apparently impede or feta efforts to prosecute or even secure any sort of indictments as far as the impact slash or C matter is concerned limitations including those which may have been born out of the very public thrashing out or prosecution of the matter in the court of public opinion you had the former PM various ministers political pundits all opining on the matter so what limitations if any has that placed on basically buttoning up the impact issue I don't think it's just what the former prime minister said or did but also the evidence that was collected the veracity of it has to be ascertained so the place that that's going to be determined is in the court of justice the government's role as prime minister and the minister of security is to ensure that the DPP's office has all the resources necessary the DPP would have to make that determination the DPP is the one responsible for making determination whether he feels that the case has been prejudiced he has to make the determination whether he thinks the evidence is sufficient because he's the one that's leading the charge and so he's a very experienced person particularly when it comes to criminal law so the fact that he is willing or not willing we're going to have to wait and see that's really the determination so I think that people are still under questioning and hopefully he makes his determination if he thinks that what the prime minister did or that the evidence is insufficient then he won't proceed if he thinks that he can overcome that then he will proceed with the case but that is a matter that only the DPP can answer that question nobody else can you have a follow up on ORC or let's get to Janelle quickly and we need to wrap up given the lack of oversight on the St. George project is there any concern that the donor community especially our diplomatic allies may have reservations in the future and if yes then what are you doing to appease them if anything I think that's very valid and so that's going to have to be taken into consideration and the options we have moving forward is the financing so I mean if we're deciding that we may want to build a new hospital where is that money going to come from and do we feel comfortable that we can raise that type of financing if we can't then we have to look for another potential solution but I think that that's why it's important that we did the audit and that we're going to pursue it with a forensic audit and that we're going to hold people accountable it's very very important I think people's solution demanded but I think that people's monies who were put into there the people who donated money they deserve to know that that money is going to be held accountable and the two things separate is that that case is absolutely going to go on I have no idea how long it's going to take but we're committed to making the resources available for that case the second part of it is how we're going to solve that problem and you're very right and that has to be taken into consideration in whatever solution we have thank you on the performance side we'll have you to end with just a few words a message a message to the solution people I think it's important for me to say that when we started this mission and when I was in opposition I'm very proud of the manifesto that we vote and we've never lost sight of that and so I know the temptation is always to judge people by their individual actions or now that there's one all of a sudden it's about me myself and my cabinet have not lost sight of what our mission is so everything that we do is driven by our mission and our mission is to provide a globally competitive education system for the children of this country it is to provide a quality affordable healthcare is to make the country secure and to provide economic opportunity in this initial stage we've said that we need to build a new solution people say PM we need to tell people more about what you found there's only so much time in the day and I only have so much energy and at this point when I see the state of my country and I know how dependent people are in this country are on us doing well I'd rather apply my time and my effort and my energy on solving the problems it's not to say I don't want to hold people accountable because the facts are there for everybody to see the state of our roads I was showing pictures today I'm sure some of the media have been down there of the state of the sewage system and the water system in castries holes are now popping up in the ground the state of your schools don't see them the state of our public service when I went to see where Inland Revenue was and the sad part is when you walked into Inland Revenue which you felt like you were walking back into the 80s on the same floor same floor of the same building is in Vestcent Lucia which is a modern designed office plan of a completely standard so it tells me that somebody knew the difference I went down to the traffic department no air conditioning desk on the side windows can't open there are a lot of sticks nasty old bathrooms my wife has gone to the police stations no hot water no kitchen no recreational facilities that's the state that our country is in I'm not complaining we're going to get all those things fixed but it's going to take me and I've said this from the get go it takes three years it takes me three years to re-engineer the service and changing the way that people think holding people more accountable and getting more productivity it's going to take me three years to change our culture in terms of how we are processing getting contracts to farmers so people aren't wasting their time it's going to take me three years to get the infrastructure of this country fixed it's going to take me three years to get the finances of this country fixed a billion dollars of bonds that have to do this year I don't know if people truly understand the impact of that on being able to manage your money on a data basis because if those bonds don't renew there is no sinking fund you've heard the former government talk about there's no need for sinking funds the sinking fund is to give you the latitude that if something goes wrong that you can still run if I don't get a bond turned over that money comes out of my cash flow means that something has to pay the price somebody is not going to get paid some project is not going to happen so our goal is to restructure this country fix up the physical infrastructure fix up the human infrastructure and change the finances of this country so that we have access to affordable resources it's when we have those things in place that the country now will be in a position to grow so when you look back historically as to why is it the country grows one here and then comes back down and goes negative it's because the capacity to grow on a consistent basis isn't there the other thing that keeps coming up is and I feel very bad about it because there's two sets of people that are being impacted the most my family who I don't get to see my constituency my constituency that voted me in and I can't be there because I have to determine where is my time best placed at this time I didn't create the I didn't create the hurricanes but the hurricanes you know Rob Emanuel from Chicago the mayor said a crisis is a horrible thing to waste so it is to take advantage you saw for yourself on CNN every day was hurricane, hurricane, hurricane the moment the disaster happened in Vegas the hurricane became the subtitle and I guarantee you by next week that's going to be gone so you've got to strike while the opportunity is there but my government is committed to delivering to the people of St. Lucia what we need to deliver and I need your support I need the media support I have no difficulty in answering any question all I'm asking you to do do your research ask a legitimate question focus on what the truth is you play an incredible role in deciphering for the public what's true and what's not true and I'm not going to say I'm not going to limit what you can ask me but I'm asking we need to recognize that we're collectively involved in this entire process so could we communicate more? absolutely but should it be every dog that barks that I should respond and be determined that I'm arrogant I don't think so I don't think it should be determined as being arrogant I'm going to respond to the things that are applicable and if a person is asking it from a legitimate place I'm going to answer that question but I can say to you that we have huge challenges ahead of us as we always have but I'm not daunted by those challenges I'm very proud of the team of people men and women that I work with in my cabinet I'm very proud of the vast majority of people in the civil service I'm incredibly proud of the policemen who in horrible conditions still show up to work the nurses when we had the explosion they could have easily said I'm off work I'm finished most people don't treat me nice the places I'm working are horrible came back and that's to say that solutions are incredible people incredible people I'm a little bit less on the negativity hold me accountable hold my cabinet accountable make sure we're doing the right things we're going to try to be as transparent as we possibly can but I have a very busy fall ahead of me and while I'm doing that fall we've moved up the budget time to February so it means while I'm doing all the things I'm doing I'm trying to make sure that we stay in touch with what's happening on the budget we're trying to get the key projects off the ground and you know you asked the question what are we doing to fix the situation with DCA we've got to fix it got to fix applications for passports you know we hopefully have gotten an improvement in the land registry still not to my extent I want to get it online right but we are going to make these things happen but it just takes a little time I'm not making any excuses but you know when I think Rick was the person that talked about the first hundred days what does the first hundred days mean what can somebody do in a hundred days right you know first hundred days we delivered on the five to stay alive you can't but that's for you to interpret because it's about the policies but even then I can tell you we came in the civil service was highly politicized highly charged but it's also for you to articulate as well and we can decide from what is articulate I agree we're starting another press conference and I want to say that's fine and I agree and that's what I'm saying to you but it's again we've done that we've articulated our way forward we've given you what the policies are we've had a budget presentation we've articulated we continuously meet every Monday we make the ministers if they're critical things that are taking place we're right there in the forefront but we depend on you to interpret it if I may ask one final question yes we need to wrap up much has been made and continues to be made about the fact that you have not gone down to meet with the potentially sorry about that much have been made and continues to be made about the fact that you've not gone down to meet with the people who will potentially be affected by the DSH project my question is have you gone down there if not why and are there plans in the future for you to go down there and to meet with those people who will potentially be affected by the desert star holding project so we have Invest Solutions is the one taking the lead on this project there have been several town hall meetings by Invest has been down there Minister of Agriculture has been down there all related people have been down there I have personally gone down and met with people in different walks of life on my own I have indicated that once we have a finalized plan a contract the new agreement and I can go and I can say to the people this is what it is I have said all I can say that we are committed to the DSH project and the principles of the DSH project we are behind it the details were set out in a framework agreement if in fact we had a final agreement we would have called it a final agreement it was a framework agreement because it was there to say we have greeted these basic principles and we have been making all these changes so once that new supplementary agreement is signed I will be the greatest champion why because in order for a solution to take the next step the South must achieve I ran in the South because I am committed to our culture and I am committed to making the South grow so the young people in my constituency who want jobs and don't want to have to migrate to the North to get those jobs I am committed to making that happen so those three hotels that are going to get started are critical the airport that is going to get started it is critical so as soon as the agreement is finalized I assure you I will be down there but people know that I have walked the streets I have gone into people's shops I have met with young people while they are playing sports I have gone to the bars and I have listened to them and that is why I told you that is where I got the story and a young man told it to me straight he said PM I don't like Kenny Anthony I don't like you but if this project can happen it is going to make a difference in my life so I am telling you one thing be like Nike just do it I would like to thank the honourable Prime Minister we definitely ended on a nice positive note thank you very much for that final question Mr. Charles thank you honourable prime minister for giving us all this time today we do hope that when you come back in Dominica we get a chance to talk to you again about some of what you have seen on the ground in Dominica and St. Lucia's efforts and OECS efforts going forward in terms of assisting thank you so much to the members of the media as well and also to St. Lucia still paying attention to us on NTN and on Facebook and Youtube thank you so much everyone thank you very much