 Welcome back to our discussion with Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastani as we look back at the year 2019. Infrastructure, Prime Minister, and I see you already give that smile because again referring to the article for consultation for Senusia, I said that the projects that the government has in the pipelines, capital projects, certainly it would be a great jump start for the economy. The expectation is that it is going to substantially boost growth between 2020 and 2022. So the focus for your government in the last financial year, the rehabilitation of the Millennium Highway and the West Coast Road. There's a reconstruction or rehabilitation of secondary roads and collector roads, feeder roads, and the redevelopment and expansion of the Hironora International Airport. We know that deserves a special attention so we're going to give it a do. But the rehabilitation for the Millennium Highway, that is, I think a lot of people are in great anticipation because it really has become a great sort of connecting road between castries and the southern part of the island. Where are we at with that? Because some people want to be able to see that the tractors are going out and doing things with immediacy. Is it happening? So the money, the funding for that project is coming from the DFID fund. So when David Cameron was prime minister, he committed something like 330 million pounds to CARACOM, of which St. Lucia's portion was somewhere between 30 and 40 million pounds. The former government had allocated that money towards the north-south highway. We just felt that that was not even going to be sufficient and the time to spend that money would not have been able to, we would not have been able to fulfill it. We felt that the Millennium Highway and we felt the West Coast Road in particular were in dire need of reinforcement and so we've allocated the money. So the project is managed by CDB and has to go through, first of all, a test which had passed to being qualified. Then it had to get a bidding process to find a designer. So that was done last year. The designer came on board. The designer has completed the designs now of the project. We've gotten them to agree to break the project into three parts, the Millennium Highway and Anceleray being the first part. Sorry, the Anceleray Bridge being the first part. And the board of CDB is meeting or has met and hopefully approved the next phase which we'll be now putting it out to bid. So once it goes out to bid, that takes about anywhere between two and three months depending on how everything goes. So work should be commencing in March or April of this year on that project. The Millennium Highway which I call the roller coaster because I'm surprised more people have not had accidents on that road. So we're very excited that that's going to take place. Following on the heels of that was the shock bridge, the cul-de-sac bridge which is being done by JICA, the Japanese. Sadly, that was a project that was supposed to start much earlier. When it was put out to bid, the contractors did not come up with the prices that everybody had thought that they would have. So it had to go back out to bid again and this time reduce the project to just being the bridge itself. My understanding is that a Japanese company has been identified. They have visited here and we're hoping to hear that the Japanese government has approved now for that project to be able to commence. So that project has been scaled down. The Ravenpoise portion of it has been taken out and we're looking for other resources to do that bridge because that's such a critical bridge that we have to be able to do. So I'm very excited about getting that road done. In addition to the Millennium Highway and the Anceleray Bridge, we'll also be labised. There's a huge component of strengthening for resilience, so slope stabilization, safety in terms of barriers. All along the high of the road going down to Soufere. That's obviously a very important road for us from a tourism perspective and also for the livelihood of the people who live in Anceleray and Canteries and also in Soufere. Alright, so the reconstruction for secondary roads, collector roads. We now have what is deemed to be the largest ever in the history of Senusha for road rehabilitation and funded by the government of the Republic of China, Taiwan, some $42 million if memory serves me correct. Portions of that program I think have sort of unfolded into the pockets areas of communities. When can we expect to see a really large scale of the project unfolded? So it's already started. Cassambar Road has been done. The Forester Road has been completed and some other roads in Babano have been done. We're Piat, Saltibus Road. The Piat is hopefully going to start just now. There are a lot of roads, back roads in the Grosalé and Castry's North constituencies. So there are roads all throughout Senusha, the Lenten Breath of Senusha. In my own constituency, the Blasher Road and the Spring Road, the Denry Town Roads, there's roads in Miku North that are going to be done. So all throughout the Lenten Breath of this country they're going to be started. So we have had agreed with the Taiwanese to borrow approximately $250 million. $100 million went towards the airport. $4 million went to housing. $4 million US went to Ministry of Education. And $42 million is going into the road redevelopment. Because of the loan and the structure of the loan, we have a five-year moratorium. So we actually will be doing an additional $10 or $12 million US work of roads, primarily in the Grosalé and also Castry's area. So all those road works are starting right now. The designs have been completed. Subcontractors have been identified. My understanding is all they're doing is finalizing the negotiation between OECC and themselves to be able to proceed with that work program. In addition to that, we're doing the West Coast Road as well as the Millennium Highway, the bridges that we're going to be doing. And then we're also doing feeder roads. So we have about 50 million EC dollars in helping rebuild and re-strengthen and redevelop feeder roads. So for our farmers, this is critical. And with the emphasis that we're doing on bananas as well as in the diversification programs, very, very, very important. And sadly, in all of these things, we're not getting to do everything that we need to do. So, you know, in terms of feeder roads, there should be about $80 million or more of work to be done. The roads that we're doing with the Taiwanese only represents one-third of the total roads in Celusia. But this is the beginning. It's going to be a significant impact on Celusia. And I have to say to everybody that this does not include any new roads. This is just rehabilitating the existing roads. And that's why I'm saying is that the deterioration of the infrastructure of this country was just going unabated. Not enough money was being spent over the years on maintaining the existing roads. And even after a period of time, even if you're maintaining a road, you're going to have to rehabilitate it. The other big project I'm sure you're going to bring up is the North-South Highway. Yes. Critical, critical road. So there was a feasibility that was done by CDB. We are in discussions with the Americans, the Canadians, and with the Taiwanese to look at putting in a final design for that road and coming up with a final costing. But preliminary costs are around $300 million US dollars to be able to develop that road. We have set aside $28 off of the airport tax in order to be able to fund that road. So as soon as we have been able to finalize everything, we will assign $28 to be able to do that. Once we've completed the airport, and we think that if we see an increase in arrivals in excess of $500,000, that we can actually pay off the loan for the airport quicker and then now assign that money to be able to help us to complete that highway. But I want to say that that probably is one of the most significant infrastructure projects that we would have to take. This is the one project that really takes solution to the next level. So when you go to Barbados as an example, think of Barbados without the ABC Highway. And that's exactly where we are. And those people who are traveling between Castries and Grozallet know exactly what I'm talking about. How much of the traffic that wants to go up north doesn't need to come through Castries. How much of the land on the East Coast we can't access because there's not a proper road there. So if in fact now you have the container port in Kuldusak, you now have a proper millennium highway that's going to continue to Denry with a tunnel through the Bartolil. And then you have two industrial highways that are going north and south at that point. Even the distribution of cargo and commercial traffic now can go on that major highway. And I think it's going to make a significant difference in the growth potential of solution. You're giving yourself a timeline within which this should be completed? We would like before our term completed this time to have secured the financing and finalized the designing. If in fact we could start, that would be a bonus. But right now, given the constraints we have, because we don't have a limitless supply of monies, we were able to create some space for ourselves by introducing the airport tax and by putting in the gas tax. So therefore these claims and allegations that the country is rudderless and that we have problems financially is not true. We are seeing an improvement in tax collections which are continuing to pay to recurrent expenditure. But these new projects that we're bringing in have their own dedicated revenue streams. And certainly every major project that we're bringing in, we're trying to have some form of dedicated revenue stream. And so the goal is not to burden the taxpayer, nor increase the national debt burden. The taxpayer is paying, right? Because whether it's through a gas tax, whether it's through an airport tax, I mean the majority of the airport tax is being paid for by the tourists. And all these things help now improve our overall, our tourism product. But there are people who try... But not to burden them by having to take loans. Correct. So the government having to take loans and then... It's not to burden the state in the sense that we are running deficits. So the most worrisome number that solutions should have been aware of under the previous government regime was the fact that we were spending 170 million EC dollars a year on interest. In 2003 that number was 33 million. Right? That's a lot of money to be paying in interest. And so we need to be mindful of that. And what we've been able to do is not allow that number to grow. We've been able to do that by reducing the amount of short-term treasury bills we have. By not borrowing as much money as we had before. That's going to have to come out of the recurring expenses. All that 170 million dollars is coming out of the recurring expenditure. So the interest and the principle on these new loans are being paid for by these dedicated taxes. The redevelopment of the Hironora International Airport. We did have an announcement midway through 2019 that the sort of first phase was beginning with that project. Some people would believe that false start. Not really. I mean, you and I had this discussion a while back. When a project begins is not when you see the groundbreaking taking place. There's so many things that have to go on behind the scenes. So this is a very big project. A tremendous amount of soil testing, EIAs, designs all had to be done. And in the midst of it, we've been negotiation with the United States government to be able to have what we call a pre-clearance facility. So it means that U.S. passengers leaving San Lucia would actually clear U.S. customs and emigration here. And so there had to be adjustments in the design that we were going to be able to make. We have been in negotiations with the Taiwanese, the OECC, in terms of finalizing the loan. We had to organize the other forms of the loan. So the $100 million from the Taiwanese was not going to complete the project. But the loan that we got from the Taiwanese with the five-year moratorium gives us the ability to borrow additional money, which we did. So we borrowed $75 million from a consortium of banks. We've been to parliament twice with that particular bill. And we're now just finalizing that term agreement. So we can't start the heavy work until all of the loan agreements have been passed. My understanding is that the final approvals are going to the Slasper Board on Friday. But meanwhile, all the plans have been completed. The preliminary master plan has been approved by planning. The infrastructure for the foundation, which is going to require almost 2,000 piles because the soil is very soft there. All that has been completed. And my understanding is that they're very far advanced with their negotiations with the subcontractors in terms of allowing that project to proceed. So we're expecting very shortly what people are expecting to see, which is the physical part of it would have happened. But we've been collecting the money. A lot of laws have had to be changed. A lot of things had to be done in order to be able to accommodate these projects. But I'm very excited as to the progress we've made. It's a very difficult project and I really want to commend Slasper. And I want to again thank the government of Taiwan for extending their hand and providing us with this concessional loan. Wonderful. Now, as we are beginning to wrap up our discussion, Prime Minister, the unemployment rate, and of course that will fall in line with all of those pending projects that we have because people have anticipation of jobs, we're announcing that there's a fall from 25% to 17%. The youth unemployment is also down 10%. So we are from the 44% to we're now at 34%. And I do hear you say not necessarily comforting. Yeah, again, these are all things that tell us that we're moving in the right direction. When you have even 17% of your population unemployed, that's distressing. But relative to where we came from, it's a substantial improvement. And those numbers were numbers that we got in September. So I have to imagine that we should be getting the next quarter numbers. I generally believe that those numbers are going to come down. And certainly with the major project starting, I think that our promise of getting to 15% in our first term, that we're actually going to beat that number and beat it quite significantly. So unemployment is an important measure. And as we see more people becoming employed and more people have money in their pockets and people start spending that money like we saw over the Christmas period, then it becomes effective, meaning that more and more people now will start being employed and businesses hopefully continue to be confident moving forward. Before we get to your expectations for 2020, I want to give you some time to talk about your tenure as the chairman of the Caribbean Community Charity Club, which has come to an end because we now have Prime Minister Mia Motti of Barbados who has now assumed the chairmanship. Your experience, detail that for us if you can or encapsulate for us what that experience was like at a critical time because we did have the heads of government conference here. Lots of issues were on the table, very pressing issues, climate change being one of the primary things as well as getting the CARICOM as an organization to function in such a way that it is more meaningful and delivers more meaningfully to CARICOM nationals. So look, I'm very appreciative of the opportunity you've been chairman. As I said to you, the chairmanship really means that you're the night watchman because there's not really a lot that you're going to be able to accomplish in six months. So it's whatever the critical issues that come up, it's your turn to be on night watchman. So you're the first line of response to any of these issues. So the situation in Haiti, we had a very tense situation in Guyana that we were working through. We had elections in Dominica which required the RSS forces to be able to go in and be able to help. And then the continued work program that we have, the blacklisting with some of the countries, the climate change as you indicated was a real topic, CSME, because that was a hot topic of discussion when we were here, the improvements of a regional security system. So lots of things to be able to keep your pulse on. Correspondent banking. We had a very important meeting in Washington D.C. I want to thank Prime Minister Gaston Brown who leads that segment. We had also the opportunity of meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau late in the year. I also had the opportunity of meeting Prime Minister Boris Johnson very late in the year. And on both cases using the opportunity to push forward the CARICOM initiative. I know that we've been trying for some time to be able to get Prime Minister Trudeau to come to a CARICOM heads of government meeting. I'm really hopeful that he will come to the meeting in Barbados in February. So I just want to say that with CARICOM it doesn't stop. There's a continual agenda that we have to be able to follow. My government's position on regional organizations is they must achieve at least one of two things if not both. One is to improve the quality of governance in our country. So it means that the quality of my healthcare, the quality of my education system, the quality of my security system ought to be enhanced by regional participation. Secondly, that the cost of government should come down. So by sharing some of these things that the cost for me should come down. But ideally what you want is both. You want to see a reduction in cost and an improvement in the overall quality. And I'm not so sure we're always getting that. And I think that, honestly, a lot of people have said this. I'm not the first. CARICOM is in need of some structural reform itself. Sadly, I was not able to make it to Guyana to meet with the staff and to be able to interact with them. I was not able to spend any time looking at those structures because we were overwhelmed with both situations in San Lucia and also other issues within CARICOM, Haiti being a very big one. Again, very early we were supposed to have a trip to Haiti. Unfortunately, things got much worse. They've seemed to have settled down a little bit, but that continues to remain a hot topic for us to be able to discuss. Although it's far from the public mind. But as we say hello to 2020, Mr. Prime Minister, and our remaining moments, I want to give you an opportunity to talk about your own expectations for yourself, the government, and where you see Saint Lucia going within this new year. We have 18 months left before elections. I'm excited at the prospects because we've put a lot of hard work in. I'm expecting that a lot of the results of that hard work will become visible this year, both from an infrastructural perspective because people actually physically see work taking place. From a policy perspective, our Headquarters Act, the work that we're doing with the Europeans in terms of making our financial sector secure, that ought to be coming into fruition. I think that we're going to continue to see our tourism grow. I'm very excited about the prospects of coming with a major project with the cruise industry, particularly for castries redevelopment, as well as putting a port in view for it. I think a cruise ship port in view for it and a home port in particular is going to transform the south. Not just view for it, but all the way to Souffaire and up to Dennery. I'm excited about the work that's taking place in our culture. I'm very excited about the work that's taking place in education. I'm very pumped about the new recording studio and broadcasting unit that's going to be put at the old San Lucia radio station and to be integrated into Sir Arthur Lewis. We've put a lot of work into thinking what we're going to do at Sir Arthur Lewis. So the new principle and where he comes from and what he's doing is exciting. So there's a lot I'm looking forward to, but it means that we just need to remain extremely focused. Very easy for people because it's 18 months to start thinking about elections. So my attitude is that we're keeping our foot on the accelerator very hard this year. And really I'd like to get to a point where maybe we can get into fixed dates for elections, as well as spending less on elections. I mean I see some countries, our neighbour in the North America, seems to be in perpetual election mode and the amount of money they spend. Whereas when I saw the Canadian elections you wouldn't even know it, it came and went. I think England also has a very good system in terms of restriction and how much advertising and everything else that can be done and a lot more controls. So I think it's important that people exercise their democratic rights but I think as a small country the amount of time that is attributed to it we have to be very cautious. I have ignored my party politically in many ways. When I was in opposition it afforded me the opportunity to spend substantially more time in my constituency branches and dealing with the party. And you have a chairman of a party and you have a political leader of a party and it really is to continue to allow that to be nurtured. I think that now that we've been able to accomplish what we have from a government and it really required my full time attention. My family and my political party both I believe have suffered from the amount of time that I've had to focus on turning this thing around with the country. I'm not so sure I could ever describe to people what we were confronted and how difficult it has been to achieve what we had to achieve. The meetings with the World Bank and the IMF to build up their level of confidence to be able to attract investors. I mean this year huge task ahead. We have 700 million dollars of bonds that come due that we have to roll over and so it's about keeping the confidence of those people letting them understand and hopefully appreciate that we're on the right track. So again in the sake of politics sometimes when we are prepared to demean the brand and the name of Saint Lucia and the name of politics we sometimes forget how much damage that we're doing but unfortunately that's not just unique to Saint Lucia, that's unique everywhere and so as a government we have to continuously put ourselves in a position to be able to overcome that and let people know that there are things that are taking place that are very positive that we are a country that follows the rule of law and that we believe that the strategy we have is a very effective one so that's why when you hear about the reduction in unemployment what's happening to the debt to GDP what's happening with some of the other projects these are important milestones in terms of continuing to build and keep people's confidence but I don't want solutions ever to believe for one minute that we as a government believe that that's what the final road is going to be not until all solutions and I do mean all solutions are taken care of in this country and are living what we consider to be a decent living will we ever stop and it may not happen and be completed by time my term of office completes but I'm hoping that like many of the other leaders before me particularly Sir John that I would have made a significant contribution towards achieving that and solutions will be well on their way to living the best life ever thank you so much Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney we know it has been a very busy time for you taking the time of the schedule to be able to sit with us and give us further insight into what it is the Government of St. Lucia has been doing in the last year that brings us to the end of our special production the Year in Review for 2019 I've been your host, Mr. Joseph see you next time