 Mr. Speaker, as I said, in my preamble, I do not belong because I would deliver it as a policy debate. But I understand the mental state of the leader of the opposition. I understand it and I feel because this morning, after years publicly ridiculed me for stuttering. We're stuttering this morning. Mr. Speaker, the member, the member keeps... Remember for Mikusov, you don't just put on your light and stand. I apologize. Put on your light and I acknowledge you. Please proceed, remember for Mikusov. Mr. Speaker, the member is making disparaging remarks about a member. I have never and will never make remarks about him on his stuttering. We all have our handicaps. So I would just like to make that a point, Mr. Speaker. There may be other people who have done it, but I would not do that. And if I stutter, I apologize and that's part of me being who I am. Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, I will bring the video, the clip. He was talking about, he was talking about St. June and I'll tell you what he said. He said, he asked the leader of the opposition, what's the price of the June? And he said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You understand, Mr. Speaker? So Mr. Speaker, so I sat and I heard him and I was told not to respond. But I'm not going to respond. I'm just going to say a few things, Mr. Speaker. That's the same leader of the opposition. Who said, after June the 6th, the opposition lost its right to speak. That's the same leader of the opposition. Who said to public servants, your job is not to tell government what to do. Your job is to do what the government says. That's the same leader of the opposition. Who stayed in this house and heard a member of his party say to the opposition, you're just starting to cry. You're crying out. You're just starting to cry and said nothing. That's the same leader of the opposition. Who left six members in the opposition. And he refused to give them, as my colleague says, not a bag of cement in the CDP program. That's the same leader of the opposition. Who during COVID, he gave, he did not give one member of the opposition, not one bag of flour to give the constituents during COVID. That's the same leader of the opposition, Mr. Speaker. And he comes here with piousness and he pretends he was never in government. And he just came down and these guys are doing so many bad things. They are misleading the people. They're not saying what. That's the same leader of the opposition. Who came to this honorable house and said that there was 150 that would be put in a locked box to fix roads. I asked him, doesn't one speaking about deceiving people? That's the guy who's speaking about not speaking the truth to the people. And I asked him every day, where is the locked box with $1.50 up to today? He has not responded. Up to today, Mr. Speaker. That's the same leader of the opposition, Mr. Speaker. Who speaks about taxing. Mr. Speaker, you know, I was told not to respond this morning. Because I have ample time to respond at the policy meeting. That's one of the few points. Because this thing is almost hurtful. When you see a gentleman who professes to be to other interests of the country at heart and he deliberately, he deliberately goes out and maligns the government. He goes out and says to investors whatever he wants. He stands in the house and says to him, it's not true. Let me tell you a story about taxes, Mr. Speaker. This government has given the most tax amnesties and tax reductions in the history of St. Lucia. And it didn't start with us. It didn't start with my administration. It started from since, from the time the leader, the member for viewpoints of, was in government. It started a process of tax reduction by beginning to reduce the tax threshold. We reduced it. We increased it, in fact, in that the income, people's income levels. When it, right now, it was, it's $18,000. I think when it came, it was $30,000 and the leader and the member for viewpoints of reduced it. That's what we've done also. We've, we've said to the taxpayers of St. Lucia, both businesses and private people, that any tax that you owe the government, including that, that, Mr. Speaker, is the tax that you collect from people and you ought to give it back to the government. There are some business people who don't pay the government back their tax. So, obviously, there's a fine and a penalty. We said to them, an interest, once you pay what you collect, once you pay what you collect, we will waive it and just pay the government what you collected. Just pay what you collected and we've all the penalties and interest. And he is speaking about a government that taxes people. This is a government that has reduced the tax threshold, reduced it. What about a government that taxes people? Mr. Speaker, it makes a big fuss. And you know, if you don't listen to it, you'll believe it. Or 2.5% levy. Mr. Speaker, when you go to borrow from any institution, anybody, including private people, the bank tells you what's your income. The bank tells you what your expenses. The bank tells you, they look at what is called your income vis-à-vis your debt and they give you what is called a debt ratio. And once that is okay, they give it a loan. He comes and we're not going to be talking about 2.5% levy. As if the 2.5% levy was supposed to be put aside, like he said, he will put a 1.5% aside, put it in a box and leave it there and take it when you want. We never said so. We said the 2.5% levy would be put in a consolidated fund and it would be used for health and security. And you talk about misleading people? You talking about misleading people, Mr. Speaker? So to make the point, we took a prior part, the loan from the whole bank was part of the conditions was to put the health and security levy. Part of the conditions was to increase revenue and we choose. We choose. And made it clear to the public that we would put a 2.5% levy on all goods except for full essential. But here is what he's saying. He's not saying we remove that on building materials. We remove that on medical equipment. And recently, we remove that on all sporting gear for the sports people of this country. So he comes and talks about taxes. I want to ask the leader of the opposition. What tax has this government put on the people of St. Lucia except the 2.5% levy? What tax has this government put on the people of St. Lucia apart from the 2.5% levy and what taxes we have reduced? Mavele Monday. Mavele Monday. My taxes are coupons. Who tax Nujja Mété as Nujja, sadly see? See? The 2.5% levy. A common tax Nujja. Tile. Mr. Speaker, when, when did they, when the pill, when the pill that misinformation and believe because they can say it and get some surrogates to promote it, that's the truth. But I've said in Orbo House that right now in the season that we are in, we are going to rebut all the lies and all the misinformation. My calling to me not to speak but I have to speak because you know when you allow these things to filter down the rule people believe it. People believe it Mr. Speaker. When you when you tell people that government is taxing, what tax have you put on the political solution? What extra tax? The 150 you put it. What extra tax have we put on the people of Saint Lucia? And what benefits have the people of Saint Lucia got since you're in government? What benefits and what taxes did we put? I'm sorry about it. You understand? So it's time Mr. Speaker. No. When is him? Global pressures, COVID-19. When is us? Nothing. When is them? Pressures of the outside. This and that. When is us? No. Reducing inflation. Mr. Speaker. This leader of the opposition. If he wants to speak the truth, must tell the world what is the what is global inflation when he was in government and what is global inflation now or last year. Tell the world. Tell the world what was global economic growth when you were there and what is global economic growth now. Tell the world before COVID which economy had the greatest dip, the sixth greatest drop in the world and the entire world had COVID. Tell the public that. Tell the public. Tell the public Mr. Speaker. Tell the public because you know you open that door, you open it and you believe you can say it in your normal style or go and cry and say, look at what they're doing me. Let the opposition speak. You are the one. You are the one Mr. Speaker who put barriers outside the parliament to prevent people from coming to the parliament. You are the one who removed the loudspeakers from out there. Probably not to hear the proceedings of parliament. You see your history, your history behind you, your history because you know you've tried to change so many times. You're the one who said and you promoted the most disgusting thing about people and the families and you said messing about it. Your history, your history, your history. So no matter how you hide, anytime you accuse anybody of something, we can show a tip where you or your party said was or did was. Anytime. I challenge you. Anything you say, I can challenge you where you said was or you did was. Your history is following Mr. Speaker. So Mr. Speaker, he says, I misled the house when I spoke about the use of the DPC loan. As if it was the first time. As if it's the first time the country has had a DPC loan. First time. Here's what I did. I did not hide the DPC loan in the in the in the bill, in the provision bill. I came up front and I said this is going to be used for budget to support. What is budget to support? Where support is helping in climate change. Where support is you know all these kind of things because all government expenditure is encompassed in a budget. So what's the point? What is the point? And he says, I said, I misled the public because I said that the loan was used for tourism. That's what I said. That's what I said. I said, I said, Mr. Speaker, I said, budget you support of SDR 26.7 million or US dollars 75 million and number two SDR 3.8 million or US dollars 5 million are located to complete activities under the OECS regional tourism apparatus project. That's what I said. What is what is misleading that isn't the tourism competitive competitiveness project part of the enhancement of the economy of solution. What what what what what's what's so misleading, what's so grievous in that. Now he says that I didn't I didn't tell the public that the health and security levy was a part of a condition of the loan. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, the DPC, part of the conditions was revenue enhancement. I said so. I said so. Now when he says I didn't say something, he can never quote what I said, you know. They can never quote what I said. If they don't cut it, if they don't cut it or move it, they can never say what I said. Like the appointment of the deputy speaker. He was always writing letters, writing letters, you know, well, letters, bar association. I will appoint somebody today who is the member of the House. I never said so. He wrote the UN. He wrote the ambassador to whoever you can find. He said I am breaking a constitution. I never said that I would appoint a deputy speaker from outside the house today. I never said so. Mr. Speaker, so let's get back to, let's get back and I'm sorry. You know, some of my colleagues didn't want me to speak. Mr. Speaker, I have to because these things go out in public and some people repeat it on the radio. Let's look at the management. Let's look at how this energy economy has advanced and the progress in the energy economy. Mr. Speaker, you know, a measure of the robustness of the solutionary economy, Mr. Speaker, is something called the primary balance. A measure of how the economy is robust is the revenue that government collects without important taxation. Without important taxation, I said in public how much the health and security levy collected. I said so in public. I didn't hide it. The public knows, and the policy statement, the public will hear how much we have spent on health and security and how much we intend to spend on health and security because the public is benefitting. The mothers of this country are benefitting from the maternal care, health care, from the Ministry of Health. You ridiculed that you put pampers in your demonstration. You ridiculed them. These people are benefitting from the, you call them telly, telly-tubbies. The people that you say you let people so much, but you never this men and women here. Do anything that I get up by telling me wrong. And they know that. Accepted everything because you're not in control of your party. That's your problem. So you cannot, and that is why somebody said, it's a par flambeau because the flambeau we know is a flambeau of respect. A flambeau that does not go into the gutters how that flambeau is going. A flambeau that we go. A flambeau of decency. I run elections against Romanes Lanciko. Romanes Lanciko has never gone down to the heights. Never gone to that level. We criticize each other heavily. We fought. We fought. But when he was ill, we spoke. He never had this hatred and this envy that you perpetuate in this country. Never. Because you've lost government. People, you're perpetuating hatred. You're making people envious of each other. You're making people, I mean, Mr. Speaker. You know Mr. Speaker, the leader of the opposition says that there is no growth in this country. There is no growth. There is nothing. This country is in a mess. They made a big fuss about roads, roads, roads. We don't fix the roads. He knew very well that he never controlled the weather. Right now, the roads are improving. Not a word said. Not a word because he did not know. You see, as we always do them, we are men and women who plan. We are men of women. The William High, Mr. Speaker, started under him. Under him. Under him. Under him. Under him, Mr. Speaker. You understand? So, let's get back to roads. They made a big fuss. We came here and we came here and we agreed. We understood and we said that the roads were in a state that was not acceptable. All of us agreed. All of us agreed to that. But we said that there are certain factors that had to be considered. Number one, the rolling for shocks in this country has been under tremendous pressure for a long time. But our history on roads, when he was the member of the Viewfort South, we were the ones who built the highway from Soufre to Viewfort. We were the ones. We were the ones who resurfaced the East Coast road. We were the ones. We were the ones who built all the roads in the Kareli area. We were the ones. And we were the ones who had a loan completely negotiated for the castries, roads, the highway, which they stopped. So, Mr. Speaker, when you... So, you know, they come and they grand charge about roads. But our history and our history is clear, Mr. Speaker. So, that is why all they have to deal with is misinformation. So, let's get back. Let's get back to listen to his theory. Listen to his theory. You must try your best in a small open economy. You must try your best for your inflation rate. Now, now, you know, he got stuck in the mill. He got stuck in the mill. He got stuck in the mill. Your inflation rate must not be more than your growth rate. Oh my. A small open economy. Your inflation rate must not be more than your growth rate. So, you must do something to bring down your inflation rate. Now, you think now. Now, you think I can deal with that? But you see, my colleagues to me, no answer. Leave them alone. But how can I get involved in that? How can somebody stand up in a parliament in a small open economy and say that we can control our economic growth with our inflation growth? Then he got stuck in the mill. When you import most of the politics, when you have no control, we import gas, we import diesel, we import most of our food. We import all that. So, how can we control our inflation rate? What's that? Then, he comes. Listen. So, your economic growth must not be higher than your debt. Your debt ratio. Oh, you want me to speak up? Your debt. Your economic growth must be higher than your debt. Now, Mr. Speaker, if you're... If you're... Then the growth, you're debt. You only say what I say. That's all you say. Then go your debt. Which is different than your debt growth. Everyone thinks it's different. Listen to the logic. Listen, listen, listen. A country can raise revenue, Mr. Speaker, by three sources. Three. One, two, three. One. Taxes. Two loans. Three grants. Three areas. Let's look at each of them, one after the other. Taxes. What kind of taxes you have? Personal tax, corporate tax, which is indirect taxation, and indirect taxation, vats, et cetera, et cetera. How do you raise corporate tax? You raise corporate tax by investment and taxing businesses. But the trophies. Two, incentivize that growth. You have to give tax rebates and forego revenue because the tax incentives that you give. So the investment that comes in because of the taxes you have to forego to create the investment, your level of collection of taxation from your investment, your direct collection of taxes is lowered because most of the investors pay no tax because we have to incentivize them to come to solution. So who is left to pay the tax? Local business people who do not pay taxes, who most of the time the taxes are low, local business people, banks and foreign institutions. So the problem is, you have to get your level of investment at a particular level, Mr. Speaker, where the multiplier effect of that investment, created by employment, et cetera, Mr. Speaker, in such that you can enhance your revenue or else you have to go for indirect taxes. So what have we done? What have we done? We've reduced the threshold of direct taxes. And we've further enhanced the environment for regular people to begin to build their homes or to improve their homes by removing that on building a basic building material. That's where we've gone. So how can you tell me that a country that has just come through a crisis of COVID, which you didn't create, but you try to blame us for the UK war, a country that has come through that stage of developing this figure can control its inflation and can stop its growth of debt from being more than its economic growth. Three factors in one. Now, Mr. Speaker, now you think any students of economics will tell you, and I don't profess to be any economy. I didn't say anybody, my CV is very simple. I profess to be nothing. No. My CV is different. And the name of my party, the name of my party is the St. Lucia Labour Party. I know no party called the Union Workers Party. So, Mr. Speaker, I want to tell this Honourable House Mr. Speaker that when things are said and they sound to be right, when people are accused of all sorts of things, Mr. Speaker, I said clearly, clearly that this loan is for budgetary support. The member of Vivo for Cass Street, from Miku, South, says what is budgetary support? I mean, what is budgetary support? So, Mr. Speaker, next week we are going to be debating the estimates. And already he has begun to call the question, to call to question what's in the estimates. Already, you know, he started already to plant seeds of misinformation and disinformation. He started already. He started already. The same way he had some misguided thing about rate of employment. After that, it was clearly stated, why? But he continues about rate of employment. Read this, read that. He has already begun to plant the seeds of misinformation and disinformation in the heads of the people of Saint Lucia. But already beginning to question the government's performance even before, even before he has seen the results. But I can assure the public of Saint Lucia that next week, when we show the government's financial statements, you will see a steady improvement in the financial statements of the government of Saint Lucia. Very improvement, Mr. Speaker, a steady improvement. And you will see that the policies of this government has led and will lead all things being equal because they are down salaries. And we are clear about the down salaries. We lead to Saint Lucia having the lowest level of unemployment in Saint Lucia for a long time. Youth unemployment. And they came here instead of allowing the youth economy to mushroom and see what happens. He criticized it. The papi showed it. They made a mess. His idea of jobs for young people was only one idea. One idea only. DSH. DSH, skin hoses. One idea. You like to see the young men, if you thought, they would take pride to be bosses. That is the idea of jobs and people pride to be bosses. Pride. That's his idea. And the second idea, Mr. Speaker, which idea that we started, we started was in the call centers. We started. So he pretends he's a king of call centers. Call centers started under us. We went into business with a local businessman. We promoted a local businessman to go into call centers under the leadership of the people. We were the revolutionary people as far as that's concerned. But we didn't give that businessman a yacht. So, you know, the time will come. The time will come when we will have to debate. The time will come when we will be able to deal with these issues. Because these issues of misinformation that have been spread in this country continuously causing an office and before they do, he accuses us. Mr. Speaker, which member of this honorable house will waste money? Where is the waste? Where is the waste? Point out the waste. Tell me where the waste is. What have we done? We've got vehicles for the police. That's what we've done. Where is the waste? These gentlemen, the cars that they drive, the cars you gave them. The cars you gave your ministers. And they complain every day about the sale of the cars. Some of them stop in everywhere. You understand? So you come about to waste and waste. The offices that we have, the offices that you are the one who did the offices back, then they came and they said, I spent 100,000 dollars in my office. I asked everybody to come and see 100,000 dollars I spent. What I did is I changed the set of chairs and I painted there. And it leaking. So this waste. Where is the waste? The Prime Minister's office? That the change is there. He's the one who did it. Not me. Not me. Where is the waste? Tell me. Where is the waste? Point out directly where is the waste. For these gentlemen to travel, Mr. Speaker, they have to get permission. So Mr. Speaker, so you talking about the Prime Minister's official residence, they mash a piece of it, the damaged piece of it, Mr. Speaker, and after the damaged piece of it, they take it all completely. Mr. Speaker, I just want to, I just want Mr. Speaker, and I'm sorry for people who think I should not speak, Mr. Speaker, but I must speak. Because if I don't speak, these things, people believe these things. People believe these things. And yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I did not officially congratulate Julian Alfred, but I heard something about, a round table about Julian Alfred this year. And a lot. And it was a friendly, a friendly debate, a friendly questionnaire. Tell the people why they're forever. I can tell you they may have been a lot in giving, but I can tell you what they did was four times more, even though they may be a lot. And from since she was in primary school, in Jamaica, the lady in primary school, yes, but you know, when they say these things, primary school in Jamaica, but you know, in the haze, in the haze to try to discredit the government, in the haze to pretend that nothing is going to solution, nothing right is going to solution. Tell Lucia is in a mess. Tell Lucia is in complete chaos. I mean, that is the impression that the opposition wants to give the world about solution. That's it. And that's not good, Mr. Speaker. That's not good. You can't afford to burn the house. Killer acts. You should not do that. And what you're doing is you deliberately spreading falsities. You deliberately taking information you know is incorrect, and peddling it, Mr. Speaker, just because you are not in government. Stop it, Mr. Speaker, stop it. Mr. Speaker, I ask members to support this resolution. Thank you very much.