 Mr. Speaker, it may take the house a little time to come down from the altitude Because I am accustomed to the member flying in a plane But these days I see he is flying in the rocket And he is going on a different thing So Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to join the Prime Minister in celebrating and acknowledging our success at UNESCO And achieving our presidency of that Nevada organization But the success points to continuation, continuity And so I think hopefully the Prime Minister and even the member from LABRI Would join us in also thanking Ambassador Shaguri Who has been our ambassador over several different administrations And has established a significant foothold in that organization Has developed an incredible rapport with all of the other countries And the respect that Sen. Lucia has gained at UNESCO In a large part, not by himself, but a large part Is it attributable to him, but I think for all of us In allowing that institution to have that level of continuity Continuity I was again saddened today Mr. Speaker That we're here to talk about something as important as water And that the temptation to politicize even this little project Could not be resisted by members on the opposite side When we want to speak about this water project And I listened very intently Hoping that the general public also listened very intently To all the reasons that were given today By many members as to how important water is Schools, sanitary, basic standard of living That we all have come to expect And need in order of having a regular water supply of clean water A regular water supply of clean water The glowing reports, how important it is And then entwined within that This whole thing about Miku Dwarf and Miku South That they intend to capture Miku South Next election This is the same government that in 1997 Won Miku South You should remember One term One term And the reason for the one term Is because the words were much louder than the deeds This is the same government that today Wants to say that they are a caring government They care about the people in Miku North They hope to show the people in Miku South how much they care But I want to remind them That this is the same government That in 2006 and 2011 The then Arsene James started a water project To service the people in T-Rochet Going all the way down to Duga and Lacoville Because the persons on that side of the constituency Did not have a regular supply of water And the same things they were speaking of The rationing of water They had to figure out what day you were going to get water Whether tanks were sufficient The investment that people were having to make in buying tanks Because this went on for years And Mr. James ended up using part of his CDP resources To buy a tank And to work with Vasco And when the government changed in 2011 For five years That project was discontinued Now how does that action Meet the test of what was being said in the house today? What? How could anybody genuinely believe The members on the other side When we don't even have to go that far back To see what was taken place I'm not going to get into the emotional aspect Of the suffering that took place on that side of the constituency Because you've all articulated it better than I ever can But it's embarrassing I'm embarrassed for you I'm embarrassed I am That you all could come and say all these things And say it with the greatest amount of passion Including my good friend from Laverie The Republic, not the country This is the same government That when they were in office And re-did the east coast road The road stopped at the Canals Bridge And rebegun at Prelia People in the Miku have not forgotten that And the fact is How idiotic the policy was As if only the people from Miku South and Miku North Used that move As if only It's not me inventing that That's actually what took place And transpired You want to speak About work that was done Not forever Because the work of United Workers Party In Miku North Needs no explanation That the father of our nation Personally Was involved in the development of that constituency And again I'm not going to bring back times today Because it's very difficult for even young people today To relate to the extent of lack of infrastructure That we had in those constituencies But suffice to say roads, schools Water, telephones, electricity Didn't exist And the transformation that was brought To those constituencies And other constituencies in the south That benefited from this vision Of the United Workers Party But just in the last Five years Construction of a new wing At the Mon Rippon Passions Combined School Construction of the new football field in Miku Village Construction of the new Miku Health Center In Miku Village And I want to say it's not an ordinary health center The new wing at the Miku Secondary School Construction of the new early childhood center In Miku Village Rehabilitation of the Prale Community Center in Prale Rehabilitation of the laundry by the sea In Miku Village Infrastructure, renovation, rehabilitation works On the two laundries Mang Laundry and Up the Lime Laundry New home for fishermen at Prale And the storage facilities Construction of a new road leading to Prale Community Center and playing field Rehabilitation of the Miku Multi-Purpose Center In Miku Village Rehabilitation of the Miku Village Council Office In Miku Village The construction of the new road Leading from the Mon Rippon Highway To the newly merged Mon Rippon Passions Combined School in Passions Over 500 school bursary Scholarships, etc. the students In Miku North The construction of a new Passions Early Childhood Preschool Construction of a new road In Miet Gardens Miku Construction of the two recreational parts Teacher Johnny's Recreational Part In Mon Rippon and Children's Recreational Part In Miku The new roads in new extension Phase 1 The pack and captain by the cemetery In Miku Rehabilitation of the Passions Multi-Purpose Court And I can go on So, want me to go on? No problem. Career and Readiness Fair for the school leavers And young unemployed persons Installation of two AC units At the Miku Police Station Annual Dr. Gail Rigabert Summer Camps Gail Rigabert Netball Tournaments Gail Rigabert Football Tournaments Auntie Gail TC Rigabert T20 Cricket Cup Demolition and construction Of two homes Reconstruction of two homes Per persons with disabilities in Miku Village Footpath from Pedestrian Crossing To Mon Rippon, Credit Union And Miku Village Rehabilitation of Mirage Sacks Footpaths in Lapuent Construction of concrete roads In Lomba and Saint-Marie Road Rehabilitation near The Mali-Zare Residence in Mon Rippon Construction of a box drain up in the line Miku near Galaxy Hardway And I can go on I have a list of over 60 other projects That's just in this And that's just in the last 5 years term So, to come to this house Miku And to take an incredibly important project Like bringing water to a community And to continue with the development And to pretend As if that is the only thing That has taken place in Miku North And to want to convince Maybe yourselves That the reason why people voted For a labour in the last election Is because nothing was happening in Miku Really? That's for another discussion That's another discussion But the reality It was not from a lack of doing work It was not a lack of Taking up our responsibilities I'm not even going to get into What we have done In Miku South In terms of roads Water projects School repairs Fixing up playing fields Healthcare centres But it never stops I'm not so sure whether the Prime Minister gave At his own conference of delegates I don't know, 2 hours to convince what I was listening to the Prime Minister of Grenada Who said Mr Speaker That the Prime Minister spoke for 2 hours He spoke for 15 minutes And people seem to remember what he said in the 15 minutes Than what the Prime Minister said in the 2 hours Right? But there was also Another contribution at your conference of delegates By The Prime Minister Ralph Gonzalez The same reason why you watch our stuff So Mr Speaker All the time You came here and quote all our stuff all the time Your Prime Minister, half his presentation yesterday Was about what we're doing But Mr Speaker Prime Minister Gonzales said something that's very very important I've said it, but I did not Ever say it as articulately as he did Ever He's very very good of genius At that aspect We live in a generation Of aspiration That if you are The poorest of poor You aspire to be better If you're middle class you aspire to be better And even when you're well off you aspire to be better And how I read that Mr Speaker Is that politics and Economic development is a journey It's not a destination As we build And we fix up things People now accept that they have the water Tomorrow it's going to be something else And that's the purpose of The democracy that we have To make sure that nobody ever becomes Complacent And that politicians Are responding to the Aspirations of our people That's fundamentally what it is So it's a continuity We see at UNESCO The success of continuity It's about coming to this house And saying that we're building on the successes Already there and we're going to move at a faster pace And that by the end of your term sir That you're going to have over 60 things In which you can come to this house And highlight that you've done For Miku North But I would say to you The persons in Miku South After electing Labour in 1997 Have learned their lesson And have no confidence That a Labour Party Is going to do Anything for them An example of the difference is That when we came into office The member from Denry North And the member from Labry Spoke about the Denry Water Project Very important project The project never stopped Continued And was delivered The member from Denry Was invited Cut the ribbon And spoke And then when we did phase 2 Which was not advanced In his administration We still invited him And he cut the ribbon again And we said it doesn't matter Who started the project If it is a good project And he spoke And he spoke And he spoke And he spoke Doesn't matter The same CDB That's funding And the Mexicans And the same persons That are doing lag here today So Mr Speaker The fact is That he spoke And we continued And we continued The project Very importantly Because it was water And it doesn't matter where you come in from And you do not do things To spite an opposition constituency Because you also have supporters In that constituency But it's the humanitarian thing to do But Mr Speaker But Mr Speaker The examples Are all there for people to see As to who continues the development of solution And who stops We don't have far back to go Rodney Bay Road Mr Speaker The member from Labry spoke about We need to have a debate And yes On the Tuesday session It spoke about the importance Of the difference between government Information And when a government minister Particularly a prime minister is going to get up to speak He no longer has the right To speak in vague terms He must speak With accuracy because he has Access to the information Persons on the opposite side Are allowed to speculate until It is clarified And then therefore they should not Be able to continue Expousing things that have Been refuted So the Rodney Bay Road Allegations of corruption All kinds of allegations Most expensive road in St. Lucia A mile road for $15 million But when you get down into The debate Mr Speaker And you start unearthing the facts of the thing It becomes a very different story The member from Four lanes Medium Two roundabouts And sidewalks That's what the $15 million was And not only that The contract was a fixed contract For $15 million So even if there was inflation Or anything else They had to complete it for $15 million $15 million Yes If the prime minister has anything Differently he will have his opportunity And he can provide the evidence And show otherwise The $15 million fixed contract And this government came in With their own Protect the victory mentality That they had to stop the project And cast all kinds of aspersions And at the end of the day The contractor was allowed To stop the project Because it had been stopped for more than 90 days That means instead of paying The contractor $15 million They had to assess the works And the works assessment came Higher than the $15 million So it means that we're going to have to Pay the contractor $15 million For a project that he should have completed For $15 million hasn't And now you're going to have to find another Contractor to finish the works So at the end of the day how much is it going to cost Shock housing Mr. Speaker Stopped And I've authored all the bravado That we're going to go and do this And we're going to go and do that For the payment of works Tavern Tavern HIA airport Project has stopped We've gone through all its phases Work had already begun You stop it Up to today you can't tell us when you're going to start What it's going to look like Come and tell us some story about you've never been To an airport that has two stories Really I mean Honestly when the Prime Minister travels Imagine he's traveling He's not going to maybe I don't know Miami airport Pretty much every single airport in the world today Has three or four floors Who cannot understand the concept Of separating departure from arrivals Who I mean who really In today's world cannot understand That concept St. Jude's has been stopped Mr. Speaker Want to have a policy debate Let's have a policy debate about bananas How is it that a piece of land Can be sold for 2.7 million dollars When the same minister In a speech in the groundbreaking For a building said that land Oh no sorry for the breaking down Of the CDC buildings that it was important Because the land is valued at a thousand dollars A square foot so a land at CDC Is a thousand dollars a square foot But land on waterfront at Binance Is only worth 2.27 Dollars a square foot Really And there was a valuation that was Done in 2013 that showed the land Was worth 6.7 million I have to go there Because this if you want to have a debate I'm prepared to have the debate On policy and issues But to come to this house And want to try to Fool the people I mean I was Amazed That when the government came in office In 2011 The approval for The Japanese To do the Miku north jetty had already been approved And what did the government do They moved it to Savans And so it was our administration Who had to wait until we can get Choiselle resolved and some other issues resolved And it finally got them to build The new birth The new dock Fishermen's dock in Miku village The design apparently was flawed But the same way But you know Mr. Speaker I'm not embarrassed to say that At the end of the day The entity you know The prime minister always speaks about I don't want to get involved The other people The Japanese designed it As a floating bridge But you know what the same Japanese Who built Choiselle How many years it took us to be able To get them to correct the problem there What happens But the reality is that resources Had been made available And a priority was given to do the dock Unlike a Labour Party Who today Mr. Speaker wants to come in And to suggest that nothing had happened Where is it When they are the ones who moved the jetty You moved it to Savans The money that was going to go to Miku village Was sent to Savans Bay Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker Really So again Who went and acquired the land To put up the tank Who put up the tank Who made all the preparations for the work To be able to bring the water to the people And you now laid the pipe I'm proud of that That's what we talk about is continuity But don't come here Until a half truth And want to convince people That there is politics involved Say the truth Give the people of Sen. Lucia Confidence that the government Is functioning Whatever Pekong we want to give each other That's fine And as a member from Labour he said We can have a debate on ideological differences But do not compromise The confidence that people have In our country and that the system does work Not all the time Not all the time So if we want to get into Debate Let's get into the debate about the two and a half percent levy As I said Prime Minister said Repeatedly The levy is not supposed to affect the price of food He said Don't misquote me I'm saying it correctly It's not going on the price of food Everywhere he went that's what he said But today Mr. Speaker We see that the two and a half percent Has impacted the price of food Turn around But inflation was there before We told you you cannot increase taxes At a time of inflationary time And this idea of this tax you have Was not going to work And the thing is that the arrogance Of the government that they don't want to listen And yet they want to turn around Mr. Speaker And convince people that somehow they care Really You care You care about the choices That people are having to make every day Harder because of the policies you have The evidence is there And you still refuse to address to it GPH May I hear the member again Wanting to come back Really on the CFFNF It is what you were thinking It was what is in your heart The GPH is a classic example Of FFFNF Of course The chairman of INVEST Is who's good friend Remember I hope the prime minister really has sat down And analyzed And questioned Whether in fact he's really in control of this government All his friends are in serious positions All the senior CEOs Are friends His brother now has been made the permanent secretary Of economic development And then you're turning around On a project that makes no financial sense You're giving up $400 million Of revenue To ask is if GPH Goes into bankruptcy And they can Last year GPH lost 57 cents Per share After a hundred and something percent increase In sales this year It is 41 cents per share Lost $600 million of debt If they go bankrupt And a receiver is appointed How is that receiver going to Determine The value of the concession That Saint Lucia has given him And it's simple Remember He doesn't understand the math The math is simple A million passengers Over 40 years I think it's going to be We had a million passengers in 2019 Cruise Cruise A million See he doesn't even know that Sure you can have his own statistics You can get this No I don't have to A million passengers It's there Today is 650 What do you think the rate is going to be Over a 40 year period What's the average going to be If you're going to give the concession For 40 years And it's 650 today Do you really believe that the price of 650 Over 40 years I know that when we were in discussions With the cruise lines They had already agreed to go to $11 So I know that GPH Is going to be increasing the price To at least $11 At least So let's say a million passengers Assuming that we don't grow significantly And $10 That's $10 million a year Times 40 years $400 million The cruise is only 11% Tuesday Tuesday 11% Of the revenue of the port revenue Who's very clear, careful Port revenue of slasper But the ante is What percentage of the profit Because that cruise business is one of the most profitable Arms of slasper So even when you want to take away 11% of the revenue It is going to have a negative impact On slasper And the sad part is slasper has been running And managing that process They built and did the extension They have developed our cruise port If you go back to 2019 And see the numbers San Lucia by far Was the number one cruise destination In the southern part of the Caribbean Number one By far In terms of numbers Go and see it for yourself Go and see it Mr. Speaker So you're going to now Give $400 million of revenue If it goes into receivership How is the receiver now Going to value that asset Because it's not land What it is is a revenue stream Guaranteed all the revenue From the cruise port In San Lucia Is given out in a concession Take care that San Lucia Mr. Speaker Doesn't find itself Having to go to buy back its own port Now if the members on the opposite side Really wanted to Appreciate it Work out that number So Mr. Speaker They want to come and convince us That the great benefit of this deal Is that They're going to spend $30 million They say $40 million They're also going to take and absorb the debt Of slasco That's included in the 40 And where's the money going In the port development Who benefits from the port development If the person Who is earning all the money on the port That's who's going to benefit So they're coming, they're going to use your money Our money To build up an asset To help them earn more money That makes sense Mr. Speaker We're all supposed to sit here And say that boy That's great That's millions of dollars That they should be given us to buy the concession And let them go Oh you see, I love that And Mr. Speaker I don't want to take advantage Of your generosity But that will be for another day And I'm very happy to have that discussion Mr. Speaker If we want to do an analysis between GPH And ESC Today you want to come and talk about passion But everybody spoke about everything else Mr. Speaker, I'm glad he's not the speaker That's what I have to say So Mr. Speaker The administrative building In view fort You know Mr. Speaker It would be It's just comical When we came into office Mr. Speaker The good friend The contractor, we're not going to mention So we know who we're talking about Was working on The administrative building To find out That NIC The land was never transferred to NIC And there was no planning approval None For the administrative building Grow and show you didn't have it You're in government Access to all the information But you see Mr. Speaker They are scared of bringing out the real information Because it would show The amount of lies they told When they were in opposition But you know what I forgive oppositions Because oppositions Can say a lot of things But the reality was Is that on many occasions we came here And answered the question Like CIP All the money is not going in We don't know where the money is We showed it to him in the budget He still wanted to deny We did And he still wants to deny But he has the information today Go and produce it So Mr. Speaker I want to conclude That sadly I'm very happy For the people in Niquon North To see the continuation Of what we have done This is a very important project But there is so much more to be done In Niquon And a big part of what needs to be done In Niquon is to provide jobs for people So you went and you demonized DSH You demonized Ojo Labs You demonized ITEL BPO You demonized all of those projects Mr. Speaker And those are the projects today That are continuing to provide work For the people in the south That our government focused on Mr. Speaker Was the ability that people could not only Enjoy water in the south all the time But they had the opportunity to live in the south And be with their family By providing economic opportunity And prosperity That would not only be as good as the north But I believe in many ways would have been Better And we already saw the reverse migration Taking place Mr. Speaker Persons were moving to the south It is only the Labour Party That wants to demonize these things And to destroy progress in this country And the example History is replete with examples of that So Mr. Speaker I'm hoping that the Prime Minister Will prove us wrong But the reality is your obsession With protecting the victory Is hurting this country And it seems Very clearly by your actions And your words Protecting victory is Job 1, Job 2 and Job 3 Stopping HIA Is protecting the victory Because you don't want to see it come to fruition Stopping St. Jude's And wanting to move into an old hospital To deny the people the size of a quality Modern hospital Is protecting the victory Stopping the housing projects throughout the length and breadth of this country Is protecting the victory Stopping the roads in this country Is protecting the victory Wanting to impose a two and a half percent Tax and selling The assets of the states to foreigners To foreigners Is Protecting the victory And it's for that reason Mr. Speaker That I believe that This government is going to be surprised By the number of persons in this country That share that same sentiment On the November 30th November 30th is not about overthrowing The government, it's not about a coup It's about violence It's about exercising democracy Practicing democracy And to hopefully Bring the member from the library Off the rocket he's in And to come back and maybe And drive on the roads of St. Lucia To drive on the roads of St. Lucia And feel what the people are feeling And to take heed And stop thinking that This 15-2 victory And notice it's 15-2 So again The people of St. Lucia have listened So all the allegations And the promises that there was no Collaboration It has shown that there was From the beginning So your government needs to settle down Needs to come back down To some level of reality And remember ultimately at the end of the day We all in this room Are Ansible to the people of this country And again Working projects Improving the infrastructure Of constituencies Working for the people of St. Lucia Is what we were asked to do And therefore Trying to hold yourself on a box As if there's something special that you are doing You will You will be sadly disappointed At the results At the next poll Thank you very much Mr. Speaker