 Thank you so much for staying tuned. We've been experiencing some technical difficulties. We do appreciate you standing by for this morning's live program. Again, we are live on NTN with this morning's update bringing you the news, the developments of the government of St. Lucia. And so far we've been getting word from the Cabinet, the Operations Command Centre in response to COVID-19, the opening of high-risk sectors. We are entering phase five of our COVID-19 response here on Island. A special good morning to you. If you're just joining us, for those of you watching on-air and online, our residents here in St. Lucia, viewers in the diaspora, St. Lucia and well-wishers as well. Good morning to you. The curfew as of 10th July will be lifted, and we are still under a state of emergency. However, the curfew will be lifted as we enter into phase five of this continued transition into the new normal here in St. Lucia as we continue to coexist with COVID-19. My name is Jesse Layance. As usual, I'm joined in studio by my colleague Carlton Cyril, bringing you the latest updates. Morning, Carlton. How was the day off yesterday? Very well. Just a little too short. We have the opportunity to say good morning to all of you who are following us, listening to us on Facebook and on the radio. We are always happy to say a lot and always happy to hear from you, because we have a ton of information to give you here. As I said before, we are very happy to have you here, Jesse. He announced that we will be in the studio this morning. We will continue to hear from you about the development of the curfew here in St. Camadlan. Two special guests at that from the National Conservation Authority. We will get to them in just a moment, but in the meantime, we take a look back at last night when we got the update to the nation on the way forward COVID-19-wise. We go to the first clip of the Honourable Prime Minister. Speaking on the lifting of the curfew, the curfew has been dropped, but also making mention of other measures and permissions that have been allowed by cabinet after getting an update, a slideshow, I believe, from the Operations Command Centre of where we're at in terms of our response to COVID-19. The most recent decisions that cabinet has made, one, is the reopening of cinemas with proper protocols. The CMO and her team have assured me that they have met with the cinema operator, and the proper protocols now have been approved, and that is going to recommence operations. Everything that I'm going to be speaking about right now would be effective as of July 10th, 2020. The second thing is that the reopening of early childhood development centres with protocols has been approved. The third is very exciting for the sports persons of our country, the allowing of tournaments, sporting events and contact sports with protocols for spectators attending. There will be protocols for spectators for these sporting events. I believe the total number of persons being able to attend the activities of sporting activities will be a maximum of 200 persons, and they will have to observe social, physical distancing regardless of the facility size. So whether it be the Darren Sammy cricket grounds or a multi-purpose court in your community that they're having a sporting activity, it will be a maximum of 200 persons per event. The Prime Minister did make mention of the United Kingdom where the Premier League has started, and there have been similar protocols that have been put in place so that persons at this point in time can enjoy the sporting activities. You heard there of the reopening of the cinema. The protocols have been approved by the authorities for the reopening of the cinema. They did indicate that the owners of the cinema have been compliant at this point in time, among other measures. Also going to the yachts, the yachting sector is being reopened. We do have individuals who are on the high seas wanting to come to St. Lucia. We did hear from the Miss Donalyn Vite, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Tourism that the appetite for tourism in St. Lucia continues, thus the reopening of the sector. Take a listen. You have the second clip from the Honourable President. The next thing really is that the opening of the yachting sector with strict protocols. So in essence what we are doing right now is all the yachts that currently are in the bubble of about 24 countries in the Caribbean. Once they have been in those locations for 14 days, they'll be allowed to come into the country without going through a quarantine, although when they come in whatever marine spots they're going to be to, that they will be properly inspected, their temperatures will be taken and that they will be medical staff on site at the mooring locations where there are temperatures and there'll be a continual assessment of them while they're here in St. Lucia. And that's just not for the yachting sector, the bubble of countries, some 24 countries in the region that individuals from there can come to St. Lucia without having to go through the task of getting tested and providing a negative COVID-19 test. Individuals can also fly in from these islands because the Government of St. Lucia is satisfied that these islands have been able to contain the COVID-19 situation in their jurisdictions. We go to a clip from Dominic Fede, the Honourable Dominic Fede, the Minister for Tourism as well as the Chair of the Operations Command Centre speaking on the bubble of islands that have been allowed where when it comes to persons being able to fly into St. Lucia without having to have a test done. That bubble which the Prime Minister referenced in his speech include Antigone Barbuda, Aruba, Anguilla, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, the British Virgin Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Bartholome, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Martin, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Martin, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos. So these are the countries that the team have come up with led by the CMO and they have determined that these countries have a satisfactory rate of COVID incidents that we can allow them in without the pre-testing. And that was the Honourable Dominic Fede, Minister for Tourism as well as the Chair of the Operations Command Centre and he did also provide some additional information where St. Lucia is at in terms of its national feeding program providing a thousand boxes a week to those individuals who at this point in time really need it. Those who have been flung into precarious situations due to the COVID-19 situations and in general the vulnerable in our society. He did give an update at this point on the nationals who have been repatriated up to 576 crew have been repatriated so far 500 others coming from land some students individuals who travel for business perhaps from various parts of the world who've so far been repatriated there have been I believe I heard that there are 200 who've registered on the website wanting to come back home at this time those who've run out of moneys students as well still wanting to return home and the assurance coming from the external affairs the Ministry of External Affairs as well as other collaborating agencies is that they are working feverishly assiduously to ensure that these individuals these nationals who desire us of returning home can be brought back as soon as possible. Other updates we received was that 17 properties with the opening of the high-risk sectors entering into phase five the tourism sector we've heard from the tourism minister that 17 properties have received COVID-19 compliance certificates and so 17 properties here in St. Lucia will be able to accommodate tourists coming into the island as well as 56 dayboat operators. Again this has been done and pushed one of the factors considered is the appetite for tourism appetite for coming to St. Lucia appetite for St. Lucia experience and there has been much effort going towards individuals wanting to come back wanting to visit St. Lucia. We did also hear from the the panel yesterday that efforts are have have advanced at the airport the urinary international airport for the screening of individuals coming into St. Lucia. Carlton and myself indicated you know a few weeks ago that the measures will be very stringent when it comes to individuals coming into St. Lucia. Every effort will be taken will be made to ensure that we don't have another case of COVID-19 but we should not be what's the word to how should I put it complacent the CMO the chief medical officer has indicated that they anticipate new cases of COVID-19. As we've seen in the last four cases at least these cases were identified while in quarantine thankfully so they as I said earlier they weren't allowed to go tripsing about the place in St. Lucia freely we've seen the strength and the reason the rationale behind the quarantine facility more importantly institutional quarantine coming into play but going back to the airport the Honourable Fede did speak to the preparations at the urinary international airport take a listen we've also been working very hard to get our airport ready you would have seen on television and on social media pictures circulating with us getting ready a testing our screening area to ensure that this will bring our airport up to the task of getting ready for COVID within this era of COVID-19 and so we were able to use the tents procured by events in Lucia for that purpose and it is now installed at the urinary international airport for the screening of travelers coming to our country as part of the preparation but it also meant that the airport would have had to have been equipped with a lot of the equipment to be able to do the screening I'm happy to report that significant progress have been made in that regard the various walkthroughs the various logistical walkthroughs that have taken place have put us in very good stead in the preparation of our airports and just to further assure you as per the protocols for that sector the training of hotel workers the taxi operators slasper a water-based tourism sector all these individuals who work within the tourism sector they have been so far trained at this point in time we're also getting word from the Ministry of Tourism from the operations command centre sorry that the quarantine requirements for individuals leaving St Lucia to go to the UK have been lifted and that is wonderful news it puts us at a great advantage at this point in time and the Honourable Minister for Tourism did indicate that this was against the backdrop earlier this year the World Health Organization are putting us in the green zone one of three countries alone in the world for amid this COVID-19 scenario so all wonderful news just giving you the tent poles of the update to the nation as received by the Honourable Prime Minister the Chief Medical Officer the Chair of the Operations Command Centre and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism last night we encourage you after this program to take a look at the program that that update that aired live last night the it was recorded on our Facebook page as well as our YouTube channel meantime we are due for our first break for the morning do stay tuned when we come back we have the National Conservation Authority representatives in studio to speak to us about how the phase five the transition into phase five will impact St Lucia as it pertains to most importantly our shores stay tuned she's been watching waiting wondering when the sands of time will give way to a tide of change and for yesterday and today to become a new tomorrow for a time when her son can kiss the cheeks of your loved one and her stars can twinkle in her honeymoon skies when her earthly embrace will reassure and calm your soul and her unique view can change your whole perspective lately she has risen to meet new challenges and to provide safe harbor to all who reach her shores for her hopes and dreams still stand shoulder to shoulder a precious reminder of experiences yet to come so wherever your moments and memories take you let her sense of adventure set you free she is St Lucia avoid touching your face I'm sure you've been told so and shakes and hugging her up no no for further information please contact the hotline at 311 or the Bureau of Health Education at 468-5349 thank you so much for staying tuned this is the morning update today is tuesday the 7th of july 2020 we just went over a list of updates that we received from the government of st lucia the cabinet as per the advice of the operations command center on entering phase five another or the high-risk sectors the opening of the high-risk sectors as we transition into a new level of our response to coven 19 at this time I would like to welcome our guests in studio from the national conservation authority and Ms. Jacinta Lee the general manager of the authority as well as Ms. Lydia Cox the commercial services officer from the authority in light of the transition for this COVID-19 situation a special good morning to you both thank you so much for being here I first want to get an understanding of for the purpose of our viewers the work of the nca and how it will help individuals who perhaps apply their trade on the shores perhaps just individuals who enjoy the the beach from time to time what is the work of the nca and zone into how it it ties into the COVID-19 scenario that we're now seeing from the operations command center yes good morning just take good morning the nca was established in 1999 by an act of parliament and we are responsible for identifying managing and conserving our natural assets and as most people know we do a lot of maintenance on our beaches and also in the coastal areas we have a number of field staff about 70 71 of them all over the beaches on the island we have a small office staff about 10 so it's it's it's a relatively it's a relatively large staff that we have to deal with we if you go to the beaches now you'll see our our workers we call them conservation assistants cleaning cleaning our beaches and so we do a lot of that okay wonderful and now we've seen the the entering of st lucia interface five of our response to COVID-19 and this will mean that many more people will be on the shores and many more people will be interacting if you can just speak to the role of the nca in advising the general public at this time yes um i'll say something and cox lady would would jump on what we've noticed is that it's as if people were waiting for the the the reopening of the beaches and people just you find a lot of people go to all of the beaches um we want to advise people to enjoy enjoy yourselves however make sure that whatever garbage you generate on the beaches that you go home with the the garbage because you find a lot of that um garbage end up in the water and this is really not good for us when people were staying home the beaches were clean worldwide everywhere just clean and clear but but now we find a lot of people are utilizing the beaches and they're generating a lot of garbage and if miss cox wants to jump on this okay um one of the other functions of the national conservation authority is um is the issuance of licenses for vendors on the beach um and since kovid we had all vendors being home not being able to apply the trade on the beach or what we call vend so kovid has affected that activity the activity that it has affected very much is the issue of um is the activity this is um mass crowd events that we are also responsible for on our beaches we grant permission for so now with the reopening and in phase five we you know that with the the hotels opening you will know that vendors will want to go back to the beach and it is something that we cannot encourage right now we need to inform the vendors that though they will be going back to the beaches we have to think of the new normal it will not be business as usual however they cannot return to the beach until we say so because there are a number of things that need to be put in place protocol the protocols for the activities on the beach also we have to look at the training of these vendors because everything is going to be different now it's not going to be business as usual and for this reason we've asked our vendors to stay away from the beach until we've put everything in place to ensure that they are safe and that the persons that they are dealing with the people that they will be dealing with are also safe so it has affected the nca um the our clients our vendors and of course um we know is going to be a very it's very difficult for persons right now for people who are depending on vending to for the livelihood um as for the mass crowd events that has been suspended until such time again we have to ensure that the protocols are in place for the vendors there are some draft protocols but we're still waiting to ensure that these are what we want to work with and to ensure that these people are properly trained before we send them on the beach absolutely and there was a concern about the reopening of tourism the the the high risk sectors can you speak to perhaps any measures that have been put in place at this time for tourists who we know a lot of the hotels have been are on the coastline any measures have been put in place to ensure that tourists the tourist local interaction on the beach the littering advice is adhered to even in that aspect for tourists as well okay i know that the hotels there are a set of protocols for the reopening of the of the hotel sector and i know that in phase one um it was agreed that they would not be utilizing the beaches as to right now i am not sure as to whether that has changed but from what i know or what i knew then that they were not supposed to be utilizing the beach the other thing is that we will not be having vendors on the beach the challenge that we face however is that we do not have rangers the issue of security okay we do not have rangers on the beach as you know with before we had rangers and that would help us very much but currently we have no rangers um that will be a challenge for us just you will appreciate that i can't be everywhere every day and um given the number of hotels that will be open it will be difficult to control people going to the beach and try to interact even our guests too you may tell them not to but they may want to do that um so this is a challenge that we have at the moment in terms of the littering we continue to do our best to to speak with the nation as to handling their waste if you go to the beach and you have an activity it is our beach just like you say it is our beach remember tomorrow you have to come back and use that same beach remember tomorrow your children will have to be using that beach so the issue of bottles using bottles and leaving broken bottles leaving garbage waste on the beach is something that's going to affect not just one but all of us so we want to ask people to continue to have that national pride see it as our beach like you say let's claim it let's be the police and let's let's embrace it as our own and keep it clean ensure that when you're leaving the beach you take away a waste and dispose of it properly or else tomorrow when you come back you will find that garbage there and that you have to end up recreating among waste among broken bottles and you can get sick you can get hurt the other thing too that we have that we just want to mention in terms of the beach and the beach maintenance and beach management is the issue of we have a serious problem with three dogs right now that we're trying to handle but we'd like to encourage people as they go about walking the dogs on the beach to clean up after them remember your children want to come there and build sand castles you don't want them building castles in the mess also we want them to understand and appreciate the work of our workers on the beach they too are human beings and their job is very very important if there's nobody to clean the beach what a mess we all will be recreating in I just want to add in terms of the as Lydia mentioned the dogs there are people who feed the dogs on the beaches they are feeders tied to the trees and you find the dogs come around and the bad thing about it is that I mean I love dogs I love animals the bad thing about it is that particularly at VG you have a lot of turtles nesting and you find the dogs you know you know dogs they will try to dig up so we try to discourage you know dogs from being on the beaches but some people just want the dogs they don't understand the for-reaching effects yes I also want to add that the big question is why don't we have beans on the beach I know that's a big question I've had to answer that so many times but I just want to again say that we've had beans on the beach before it costs us a lot of money they get stolen the wheels get stolen but the biggest problem that we have with the beans is people dumping dead animals in those beans and these people coming to the beach having to deal with dead animals it's not fair to them so what we've done for the past couple years is that we've constructed waste haulers people who will take the waste to the to the day glow landfill on a daily basis so as as the workers finish work on the day the trucks will come in take the waste and dispose of them what happens is after and on weekends people using the beach after they find it clean they use the beach on a weekend they will find it clean they will use it and then they will leave the bags of waste there then the dogs mess it up we can simply take it with us and find a safe place to dispose of it a proper place to dispose of it yeah another issue we are sorry you're talking about all the issues but another issue we have to deal with is um fires people they they they cook in the the trunk of the trees and so if you go to to sandy beach to Viji you will see it's like holes holes in the trunks of the trees just holes not even a hole over the holes and they use this as i don't know like a cold pot or whatever in fact we were there last week saturday and we had to stop a gentleman he had it he came if it's raw chicken in his pan and he lit and he lit his fire in in the in the tree trunk and so you find a lot of the trees are just burning away and we wish people wouldn't do that and apart from that some people illegally they they they have bonfires on the beach and they use pallets with the nails and what do you think happens you know yeah you find the you find the nails in the sand you find the the the burnt the charred um pallet the wood in the sand and what they do they bury it they cover it with with sand and people have gotten hurt understood by that what are we going to do uh just speak to you we just got a little insight into your work and the challenges that you're facing at this time we're going to venture into that a little bit more and also looking at the achievements of the nca so far venturing away from COVID-19 a little bit do stay tuned we are speaking to the representatives from the national conservation authority when we come back we will be speaking more about their work their efforts here on island stay tuned as part of government's social stabilization plan to assist persons who have lost their means of earning due to the COVID-19 pandemic the government of st lusia has implemented the income support program where non contributors to the nic shall receive a monthly payment of five hundred dollars for the next three months taxi drivers jet ski operators vendors agro processors tour guides hairdressers barbers small bar and restaurant operators construction workers and other sole traders who meet the criteria can apply using the government of st lusia's website www.govt.lc payments will be made directly via electronic transfer to the recipient's bank account the income support program simple strides towards recovery thank you so much for staying tuned we are live on ntn with the morning update bringing you news at this time of the nca and their work as it pertains to us entering this new phase of the COVID-19 response entering high risk sectors we have the beaches being open and of course there is something to consider site conservation how will the beaches be taken care of at this time we saw when COVID-19 hits and everyone was home under lockdown worldwide we we saw many natural areas returning and the earth returning to its own and and as we're seeing the lifting of restrictions and individuals being allowed back onto the beaches unfortunately so we're hearing from the nca that there has been a little bit of indiscriminate littering at this time beach maintenance and commercial services before i venture into the work more the work in general of the nca if you could just speak to lydia the the efforts toward water-based tourism i would understand that you would have some sort of purview over that how will it work out in this new scenario okay here um we do have some vendors who do the the debut chattering um i understood that there was some there was some training however what we plan to do is to ensure that there's training for the persons because what happened is that the the debut charters would have those who are licensed with us the reason why they are licensed with us is because they need to they want to apply their their their goods on the beach they would like to sell their services on the beach um so the the persons who will be employed with them we they are going to be part of the training to ensure that we follow the protocol they everybody will have to follow the same protocol once it comes to the beach because our jurisdiction is on land on the beach what happens on the water would have to be done by slasper um so they would have gone through the training the the owners of these boats those those debut charters would have gone through their training with the ministry of tourism but the workers the employees will now have to go through that training to ensure that they they follow the protocol and to be able to leave with the new normal okay what has been the interaction with the nca and uh the operations command center perhaps in terms of getting some sort of regulation on well what we have been doing is that we've been in communication with the ministry of tourism so there is a draft like I said earlier the draft protocols so we're just waiting to to ensure that everything is okay for with the protocols and then to look at training for these these vendors on the beach everybody who will be operating on the beach will have to go for the training but we've been interacting and working with the ministry of tourism okay and of course we'll be releasing also with the the environmental health department wonderful wonderful now moving on to the work of the nca um I do you have uh equipped us with an annual report document April 1st 2018 to March 31st 2019 and if you could just speak about first the achievements of the nca uh at this time you know we'll get to the challenges in a bit yes the achievements of the nca we know that the the being confronted with the the dreaded sargassum seaweed um here on island and this part of the world um if you could just open with that uh what triumphs have we made in terms of dealing with the sargassum seaweed right we have worked or are working we are working right now with al gas organics you know john is um du jour and that has been going very well in fact right now we started a project that it commenced on monday and we're going on for two to six weeks um this time around where we have employed in in in conjunction with al gas organics um 2020 workers from the ufort area to to bag the sargassum and also to to to um help with the spreading and the drying now these people were trained um last year in how to handle um the sargassum seaweed so that went very well we trained approximately 120 persons from denry prale miku and viewfort and so what we're doing now is to using using those persons um to to to help with the project okay so there's definitely still sargassum oh yes it's on the observation can you tell us what the extent of it is um as compared to previous years it's i i don't it's it's bad i we were in view for just one cox we were in fact we were in view for um yesterday and it was amazing to see the amount of sargassum that's there we also went to um to the hotel coconut bee coconut bee and there was so much sargassum there and it was it was mind boggling but the other thing too is that we we seen the sargassum like we did the last time coming up through vigi the vigi beach we not a whole lot but we do have some there as well but the good thing about it is that um al gas organics could is able to utilize the sargassum so it's much more than you can yes but that there's much more than you can use now yes it's it's a whole lot and and you find when they begin to you know sargassum begins to to rot unbelievable stench causing respiratory coronavirus but children are safe no hold up children are actually more likely to touch all kinds of surfaces put their hands on their mouths and their eyes or sneeze and cough with little thought about hygiene when around others while children have been seen to recover well from this virus they can easily spread it to those more at risk like the elderly or ill persons who have a weaker immune system teach the little ones in your care to be little power houses of infection prevention keep reminding them wash wash wash your hands cover your mouth with tissue or your inner elbow when you sneeze and cough and be sure to praise them when you see them taking these precautions our health is in our hands together through simple actions we can stop the spread of coronavirus this message was brought to you by the brewer of health education of the ministry of health and wellness devastating epidemic can start in any country at any time and kill millions of people because we're not prepared because we're still vulnerable epidemiologic investigations are underway but yes it's certainly possible that there's limited human human transmission i'm declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of novel coronavirus we have a window of opportunity while the number of cases more than 99 percent are in china in the rest of the world we only have 176 cases let's use this window of opportunity to really invest in prevention to invest in control and prevent this virus from spreading it's time to act the detection of this small number of cases could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire if the world it doesn't want to wake up and consider this enemy virus as public enemy number one i don't think we will learn from our lessons we have over 400 scientists there's been huge global interest in this topic and a real desire to collaborate and contribute our window of opportunities narrowing and that's why we called the international community to act we've had enough countries now import disease it is time to prepare it is time to do everything you would do in preparing for a pandemic all countries can be looking for cases right now all countries can be aggressively finding those first cases and following those contacts over time shortages are leaving doctors nurses and other frontline health workers dangerously ill equipped for to care for covid-19 patients this is not a drill this is not the time to give thank you so much for staying tuned we have been experiencing some technical difficulties this morning for which i profusely apologize the live broadcast with the national conservation authority representatives was going so well and we are sorry to disappoint with the break the interruption in that broadcast but we continue nonetheless and hope that you can stay tuned for the duration of this morning's program if you're just joining us so we are speaking to miss Jacinta Lee the general manager of the national conservation authority as well as the commercial services officer miss lydia cox and they've been speaking to us about conservation efforts not just in light of this covid-19 scenario but their efforts in general so far and i believe when before the live just went off we were speaking about the sargassum seaweed and the efforts toward um containing it for tourism and general conservation purposes and lydia i believe you were about to speak on you know that it has been the worst that you have seen in your career well yes um i went to coconut bay yesterday and indeed it has been this is the worst i've seen coconut bay area and for me i mean it really definitely will affect the hotel and they guess um we do not know what can be done but i think um the stakeholders will have to come together and do an assessment of the situation and see how best we can assist um but um for us which are our best but i think it's now overpowering it's quite a bit in the south of the island that is okay um just moving on to uh the other achievements of the nca so far in terms of a conservation uh the sensitization of conservation here in st luccia um getting young people to understand its importance i can you speak to the efforts uh in the the medium term so far right we together with the the assistance of the united states preschool um established five five um conservation clubs um in schools and we had in corin corin secondary grozilla secondary ancillary p i and the martian school and that went very well um the the students were quite excited they formed their own um clubs conservation clubs in the schools they participated in activities um on the beaches the beach profiling um with the ministry of the ministry of of the fisheries department they also um designed bins and if you look in our in our in our report you would see that um each of the schools designed a bin they painted um you know they painted the graphics and all sorts of things on the on the bins and what we did we we placed those bins on the beaches so so that's been going very well you are supposed to to have um two other peaceful volunteers this year but because of covid this we are to put a well the us are to put a hold to that so we're hoping that by next year we'll be able to continue the program okay with with the with the volunteers okay what other hiccups have you experienced so far due to the covid 19 situation in terms of your mandate executing your mandate in general um right well in terms of of our revenue revenue intake um because no vendors on the beach so we can't get any money we have no activities no money we have the tenants who cannot operate most of them cannot operate in fact um they they remember the prime minister said that um the the tenants wouldn't be any rent yeah until sensitivities to that right until september and so so that's an issue in terms of our revenue from from these from these sources but let me just add that the the vendors and the tenants um have been participating in the the economic relief program um set of set up by the government and number of them have applied and we have applied for those who are unable to do so so so that is going um very well and they should be getting the the five hundred dollars i think is a month for three months so that is going okay okay i see at the top of your challenges that you so far have experienced is the lack of security and safety on the beaches um if you mentioned it briefly uh lady i believe earlier if you just expand on on that challenge and perhaps how it will affect us going forward what measures may need to be considered from you gm as we enter this new covid 19 storyline let me oh i mean but but let me just say i mean probably they could come in that um there used to be rangers on the beaches um years ago but then these rangers uh were absorbed into the rural censorship police force however with the with the assistance of the s l h t a you're able to um get funding for three rangers on the on the redway beach um so we've been happy for that however we need to have security on all of our beaches and we're hoping going forward that we'll be able to do so but but many thanks to the s l h t a for assisting us um in that regard with respect to the rangers it's really important that we have rangers on on the beaches so we don't have to act yeah okay it's um just to explain the importance of having security on our beaches first of all let me just say a big thank you to the rural censorship police force um as the commercial services officers officers sorry of the nca the support that i've received from the rural censorship police force is just beyond what i expected they've been very supportive um and they you know they work with limited resources but they've been very very supportive however we the importance is what i want to stress on of our security on the beaches during well normal time um i did say normal time because we now have the covid situation to deal with we have we face if a situation where we have illegal vendors on the beach we have people plying all kind of things on the beach people selling all sorts of things on the beach that we would not normally grant licenses for you talk about lucid activity illegal activities taking place on the beach um so we what we what in in my experience at the nca during my 20 years is that what i found is that during the time of the rangers we had less littering we had less of these activities taking place and less illegal activities as well in terms of planned activities parties on the beach because to have an activity on the beach you need to come to the nca to put in an application um what we do is um we would have persons people tend to believe that we're going to charge them for every activity but it depends on the activity you're going to have be it a wedding be it a birthday party anything that you're going to do on the beach where it's an organized activity you need to come to us in most cases what we ask is that you put a refundably deposit and the refundably deposit is one to force people to clean the beach after them it's it's just sad that we have to do it that way but you find that a lot of people sometimes leave the area on clean and we have to do this thing so it's a refundably deposit once you clean we we give it back to you so with the rangers on the beach you find that these activities are more controlled also the our vendors are also kept they were kept in check so if you have the rangers there persons who did not pay their license will be checked on and also less harassment in terms of visitor harassment so the the the security on the beach is very very important it it did very well for us in the past and we think um we're going to continue to beg because we really need them there especially now that we're going to be putting new new um there's new protocols in place um people may not want to adhere to the new rules and if you have rangers on the beach they can assist us of course our rangers always get the assistance of the police when needed but we cannot really depend on the police full time because the police they have limited resources and they have a lot of work to do they do assist us but we need our own rangers on the beach who will be there will be stationed there because the police can come if you have if you have an issue but they have to go because they have other work to do whereas if you have the rangers stationed there they can ensure that the rules and regulations are adhered to by persons using the beach if I can just go a step further we were experiencing the issue of illegal border entry yes you know and uh and the role of the NCA the rangers would approve very uh helpful yeah in that effort depending on the beach where they are yes but no that's alone um the illegal entries um I think they used to take place at at night and our rangers would just during the day you know so so depending on the beach and the time of the activity yes folks I hand over to you me you find a place to go, you go to a place called Mashiab. That's why I'm here for the treatment. Then I want to thank you all for coming. Thank you. And I have a question. I have a question for you. You are a very good person. We are NCA. We are an organization. You are a good person. It's important to know who the organization is and to observe the video and to document the book. It's important to know who the organization is. The organization came in 1999. I have a lot of friends here. What is your organization? And what is your responsibility? How do you connect to the organization? Organization. Organization. NCA. What is the name of the organization? Parliament. So, my name is Simon. Because... Queen. The network. The network is... I have a lot of friends. We need contractors. Who can come to... To speak to you. To talk to you. Right. I am a director. I work in the office. Who can come here too. So, I am Simon. You can do a good job because you need to take care of the people around you. You just cut down on the people around you. There. Okay. Right. So, right. Exactly. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.