 Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Lord for this opportunity to be here today, something I don't take for granted and nor should any one of us. In fact, my constituency has been very hard hit, Mr. Speaker, of friends, constituents. Mr. Tommy Vaval has passed away, Jubal Talium, and a very good friend in T-Rochet, Julie Jean Charles, and in Sheik, a lady that we all know very fondly, Harry Krishna, or Margaret George, some people may have known her, and sadly Margaret Bicar from Duga. Life is a very delicate thing, and we should appreciate it every single day, Mr. Speaker. Speaker, I want to thank the Prime Minister, and I want to thank the Taiwanese government for their contributions that we received in the CDP funds this year. We received about $400,000 in total. The funds were used in conjunction with the council, very grateful for their support. One was on the Leslie Road, was a road that we had started, was in very deplorable condition. We didn't get to finish it completely, but in part, the Bosia sporting facilities. Those of you who've been there would know that there is the building, but it's been gutted for a very long time, and so we're in the process of redoing the electrical and the plumbing for that particular facility, and we're also adding for the first time, Mr. Speaker, a washroom facility for the football club in Lacquaville. For those who've been there, it's a facility that's way down in the hill, and there's absolutely nothing there, so putting a proper washroom facility and changing the facility, I know it's going to help the young guys there very, very much. I'm also very happy with the work that we're going to be doing at the Dugard Community Centre. It's a community centre that's been there for a very long time and had come on to a lot of disrepair and work is beginning in that area. I want to thank the Ministry of Infrastructure for the work that they commenced about two weeks ago on the potholing of the Kirochet Road. That road was a main road with something we were intending to redo if we had prevailed at the poles, but I'm grateful nonetheless for the potholing that is taking place there. Mr. Speaker, the member from Miku South, sorry from Viewfort South, brought up an issue, and again I don't really have to go very far, Mr. Speaker, because the evidence to contradict in some ways what he was saying is actually in the same documents. It is in the memo that was written to Cabinet, and if we just go to section 210 of that memo, Mr. Speaker, it says on August 29th of 2014 Grant Thornton, the operating company's tax consultant, submitted an objection to the 2008 and 2009 withholding tax assessments. In further dialogue with the IRD, the tax consultant indicated the group's intention to request retroactive concessions from Cabinet on the withholding taxes assessed for the period 2001 to 2009. For this reason, a response from the Inland Revenue Department to the objection has been delayed. It goes on to say, Mr. Speaker, in 2.11 that in April 2015 the Department of Finance submitted a memo to Cabinet to seek advice on the withholding tax waiver granted in December 2013 for the period commencing June 1st of 2010. The Department was seeking clarity on Cabinet's intention when the December 2013 concession was granted considering that the current dispute for the period 2001-2009 did not seem to have been considered by Cabinet. This matter was withdrawn by Cabinet and no response has been furnished to date. Mr. Speaker, this is actually, sadly, a very simple situation in which sandals incentives were revoked twice, revoked not because they had done anything wrong, revoked because they were making additional investments, and additional incentives were given to them. And in one of the revocations, Mr. Speaker, in 2.7 it says that in 2009 the government revoked all concessions between 1992 and 2008 that did not have an explanation or terminal date and this resulted in the group's 1993 concession being revoked. And when the 1993 section was revoked, whether it is intentionally or accidentally did not give them the exemption for the withholding tax. And so inland revenue was simply saying, can you, can Cabinet confirm what the intention was? Was the intention to deliberately revoke it and not give them the withholding tax? Or was it a mistake? Now it doesn't take a genius in Cabinet to figure out what happened because every single investor that comes to this country and makes that kind of substantial investment gets the withholding tax waived. It's not like a special concession for them. And more so today when you're dealing with multi multinational hotels. So the reality is, or the truth is, that there was nothing egregious done. There was nothing malicious that was done. There was no special favors. Now what I find very surprising from the member from Viewfort South, the policy that he's indicated that he practiced, where was that policy when Club Solution went belly up and was left owing not only monies for HAT, not only monies for other inland revenue revenues, but we're also holding PAYE monies and Cabinet gave them the waiver and allowed the deal to go through. So please don't pick and choose when you want to say that you do things you don't do things. It was not in any way that Cabinet acted unilaterally or did anything that was intended to avoid or cause or help or facilitate a company not paying its taxes. So I wanted to bring that up to put that hopefully that matter to rest on that issue. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Grozellay made some comments and brought up some issues. I want to say to the member that the attention of the opposition is to highlight what's in the report. So when we when we rebut, we go based on the information that's in the estimates and the information that is in the social and economic review. It's not the opposition that wrote the estimates. It just so happened that every single item in which it spoke about projects for the ministry, it was blank. Not me. Blank. And I would say that the member from Grozellay maybe ought to spend a little bit less time worrying about my state of mind and maybe start learning some lessons about governance. The issue is to who paid his trip where the government participated in the cost of his trip. I assume that government gave him permission to go. He's on salary. My son my understanding is his government paid his per diem. But the issue is not depriving him to attend World Cup football. He gave us no reports. What did he go for? What was the intention? And as a young guy aspiring to promote sports you would have thought attending such an amazing event. There was some reason to go there. Maybe he has an aspiration to get Senlusha to participate in the next World Cup event. And he went there to scout out the place to make sure to see how it all works and put the world on notice that Senlusha was going to do that. So Mr. Speaker, I also thought it was very inappropriate for him to want to bring up past bills because all governments leave bills. And the fact that he chose to pay it all I would advise him to do is to make sure he does a proper audit on it. And I would have hoped that he would have called the same person that he mentioned to find out whether in fact it's a real bill. And whether these things actually took place. But I'm going to leave it to him and the other members and in his ministry to do that level of due diligence. I'm going to deal with health care so I will respond to the member from Viewfort North's issue. I will also deal with fiscal management that was brought up by the member from Ancillary Canaries. So the member from Viewfort South also brought up issues about management during the COVID period and why Senlusha's economy contracted more severely than others. And I will also deal with that in the presentation Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the accomplishment of Senlusha over the last two fiscal periods is anything but astonishing. And I think that there are many people that need to be applauded for the success that we've had. No other country in the Caribbean other than Ghana and let's face it Mr. Speaker. Ghana didn't even contract during the COVID period. Ghana has now discovered oil. They didn't have a big tourism market. The lockdown didn't affect them as much but they had a tremendous amount of construction that take it it was taking place there that covered them. And so when you hear a country growing by 62% this year it's an exception and I'm very happy for for the Guyanese but other than Guyana Senlusha was the fastest growing and recovering economy. Not only in terms of percentage growth 12 and 18 and a half but if I'm not mistaken we're the only country to have actually come back to being in excess of the revenue that we had in 2019. The only one. You know we always want to compare ourselves to Barbados. Barbados's economic recovery in 2021 was negative 0.3% and their economic growth this year was 10. In fact in 2021 Senlusha had more arrivals than Barbados. We had more arrivals just from the US market than Barbados had in total. So Mr. Speaker I want to thank and recognize Ms. Esther Rigbert who was the Permanent Secretary and Director of Finance. Paula Joseph who was the Budget Director. Shamin Justin who was the Deputy Budget Director. Swith Donnelly who was the Assistant Budget Director. Lisa Montute the Assistant Budget Director. Gemma Lafei Director of Research and Policy and I also want to reiterate to her my sympathies on her mother's passing. Jenae Leon, the Chief Economist. Nadia Wells Acting Director of Financial Administration. Fiona Hinkson. Vera Emanuel. Anthony Jean. Erma Lewis. Matthew Branford. Adria Sanson. Maria Natan James. Marcia Vite who was the Controller of Inland Revenue. Shamin Emanuel the Controller of Customs. Anita Montute who was also a previous Controller of Customs. Peter Chico also a Controller of Customs. Howard Wells Director of National Integrated Planning and Programming. Janelle Steven. Claudius Emanuel who was the Permanent Secretary and the Director of Finance. Tommy Descartes who was the Chief Economist. Pele Alcindor who was the Deputy Chief Economist and Thervina Matron who was the Deputy Chief Economist. Mr. Speaker these people are heroes. They are heroes. They understood what it was in March of 2020 when it became very clear that the world was going to shut down. When you go through the tourism statistics and you see that the arrivals for three or four months was seven people. No tourism. At the end of a budget period so means that the budget was literally put together and had to turn around on a dime Mr. Speaker to put together a strategy and to keep the house lights on. Mr. Speaker we now have the benefit of hindsight to know that the revenue in 2020 decreased by almost 35% from 1.1 billion dollars to 855 million dollars. That the economy contracted by 24%. The tourism collapsed. That 14,000 people directly employed in the tourism sector were without a job. All the persons who work indirectly in tourism, bus drivers for transportation, staff transportation, farmers, everyone were simply confronted immediately with this crisis. And the reality was that while we were trying to build a fund we hadn't gotten there yet. I said it was going to take us three years and we were in the process of actually having reserves. I say that because countries like Jamaica that had been through almost 20 years of structural adjustment and we're being forced now to have significant reserves. Grenada had been through a structural adjustment program and had reserves. In the case of St. Kitts and Dominica who use their CIP monies very fluidly in their cash flow. We had none. Zero. And these men and women had to come up with a strategy to keep the lights on. To keep hope. Work with the banking association because there was a reluctance Mr. Speaker in those days to give a blanket moratorium. Imagine the chaos that would have ensued if there was not a blanket moratorium. The number of workers who not only who had lost their jobs but now having to want to contact the bank to find out what happened, what's going to happen to my mortgage, what's going to happen to my house, what's going to happen to this? Am I going to be in default? Imagine how the banks would have been inundated and the persons who could not get through to the banks because many of them probably would not have had the answers. Members here who are experienced who understand what it is to go to CDB to get 30 million U.S. dollars. To go to the World Bank to get 30 million U.S. dollars. Even more difficultly to go to the IMF to get 30 million U.S. dollars. To negotiate with ECCB because there was not an automatic increase in the reserves or a downsizing of their own reserves to give us more money or access to more money. All of that bureaucracy had to be done. And they're the people who did it. They're the ones who burnt the midnight oil to make that happen. Knowing every day the pressure and the number of people that were depending on them to resolve this issue. I say it because maybe they did it too well. And a lot of people don't appreciate what the team of people achieved. And that was the immediate part of it. So by the time May came, if I'm not mistaken, the loans had already been approved and signed off on it. IMF had been signed off on the World Bank, had been signed off on CDB. Unbelievable. The number of meetings that had to take place to meet the due diligence and the requirements for all of those things. And they did it. They got through. We get, and I'm accustomed to the political jabs. Members on the other side, three of them, three prime ministers, ministers of finance, all are very familiar with the fact that IMF and World Bank cannot lend you money to pay for debt. So you're getting it for budgetary support but that money cannot go to pay debt. So yes, monies that we're going to go to other projects were reallocated to pay debt and the monies that were coming in from the World Bank and the IMF were allocated to those things that are acceptable by the World Bank and the IMF. But we want to play politics with it. Go ahead. As it was done, that monies were being used not to help people. They know the language. When they go to their board, the money was being made available to not only Saint Lucia, the world on the basis of COVID and all kinds of humanitarian cries. But fundamentally what the money was for was budgetary support. That's what the money was for. We were not even getting enough revenue, or I should say we only were getting enough revenue to meet salaries. For less, meet debt payments. You were earning $60 million a month for almost six months and your operating costs were $110 million. So the money from the World Bank and the IMF and CDB and also from ECCB, that is where it went. And it was this team of people's responsibility to make that happen. And Mr. Speaker, it didn't stop there because that was the initial crisis was to deal with the cash flow for that particular year. Despite our best attempts to get the civil servants to facilitate cash flow, which were unsuccessful, and we met all of their salary requirements. The next thing was how we're going now to make it out of this. And I remember Mr. Speaker, nobody knew. I remember when we had cruise ships coming in and there was anybody who had any kind of respiratory ailment, whether it was a flu, whatever, we didn't know. So ships were being stopped from coming in simply for that reason. There's a famous story of a carnival ship that was coming here. And after speaking to Prime Minister Motley, because the ship was home porting in Barbados, we agreed to send it there. They wouldn't even allow the ship into the harbor because we didn't have testing in those days. And she could have done the testing. If the ship came in here, we would have had to send a test to Trinidad but still keep everybody on the ship at the same time. That is what we were confronted with. And everybody's fair. The moment that anybody heard that anybody was even remotely sick, everybody automatically thought it was COVID. And in thinking about COVID, what came to mind was the scenes that we were seeing in China, the scenes that we were seeing in Italy, and the scenes that we were beginning to see in England. Of bodies lined up in the hospital. Of healthcare systems that were being overwhelmed. And the number of deaths that were being reported. That's the fear that was in everybody, Mr. Speaker. That's the environment that all of this was put together. I ended up having a long conversation with Governor Cuomo. If you remember, he was doing his daily reports. And I remember one of the days he was lamenting that the state of New York was outbidded for people on for respirators. We couldn't get respirators. There was a world shortage. Everybody was done. And when you would order a respirator and you would get a contract, by the time you were going to send the money, the amount changed. I say these things because that is what was going on behind the scenes in terms of trying to quell this entire situation. You can imagine how disheartened I am when we came to the budget in 2021 to hear members on the other side say, now we have hindsight, to say that the single or largest failure of the government of St. Lucia was that 55 people had died by 2021. And that they had 5,000 cases. Well, if we failed with that and not knowing what was taking place, you had 400 deaths and 20,000 cases. How do we relate that? How do we relate that? A colossal failure? But I know better. I know better not to make that kind of irresponsible, callous statement. Because up until the end of September of 2020, and that's after reopening our economy in June of 2020, we were the first to reopen. Again, we were crazy. We shouldn't reopen. I'm blaming everything on the borders and I'm allowing tourists to come in. All of those things. We stayed steady. We had 28 cases and no deaths. It wasn't until the March. After the March is when we got to a thousand cases and we started seeing people die. Am I going to entirely blame it on the March? No. But can I say it was a contributing factor? Absolutely. For sure it was a contributing factor. As I said, Mr. Speaker, the team did not stop at that point. The growth experience in 2022 is in a large part the result of an economic recovery and resilience plan that was put in place to combat the pandemic and position the country for a swift rebound and the third in the in the three prong strategy to respond to the pandemic. That included a public health response, social stabilization plan and the economic recovery and resilience plan. So Mr. Speaker, the public health response was closure of our national border, national curfews and physical distancing, conversion of the Victoria Hospital into a respiratory hospital and the Cuban Medical Brigade that we brought down to help man Victoria Hospital. The social stabilization plan was the NIC economic relief program, the non-NIC contributions of income support program, suspension of rental fees to MSMEs and renting from governments and fuel rebate to the bus drivers. That cost $119 million. Electricity assistance program, expansion of public assistance program, provision of grants and loans to MSMEs and fast-tracking capital investment projects, $548 million, Mr. Speaker. We continued financing of major projects already initiated, including the UNORA International Airport, redevelopments in Judez, if you know that the piling was taking place. I keep on hearing members in the House say that and the Prime Minister put in his budget speech, Mr. Speaker, over spending of $40 million. We keep saying, where does he get that information from? There was a contract that was put out for the piling and it ended up exactly on budget. So whether he's saying that putting the piling was a waste of time, that's a completely different thing, but the fact is that project was executed on budget. Completion of the respiratory hospital, other projects such as the West Coast Road Rehabilitation Project, the Viewfort Water Redevelopment Project, the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project, the Miku Secondary School and Rehabilitation of Selected Community Centers, among others, through implementation of these capital projects and a total of $396 million will be spent and between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs will be created, providing much needed employment to persons who have lost their jobs and stimulating the domestic economy. And let me say, Mr. Speaker, many of these projects were already in the pipeline. Many of these projects already had financing and what was done was to meet with CDB and to meet with the World Bank to try to get these projects expedited as much as possible because common sense tells you there's no road, there's no work on, there's no traffic on the roads, fix up the roads. In addition to that, $150 million in DFCs will put on $50 million from Renault Gujata, $50 million with Fresh Start and $50 million with Nationwide. They got the financing. That doesn't go down as part of your debt to GDP to help stimulate the economy. The payment of $75 credit monthly for six months up to March of 2021, electricity bills of about 3,416 eligible beneficiaries, expansion of the Public Assistance Cash Transfer Program from 2,600 households to 3,600 households, increased the child disability grant from $200 to $300, increased the grant of persons living with HIV from $100 to $200, provisions of COVID-19 hygiene care packages for the poor and the vulnerable, increased the grant of children in foster care from $200 to $300, provision of $3.1 million to repurpose from the Climate Adoption Financing Facility of the World Bank-funded DVRP to provide blended loan guarantees assistance ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 to micro and small enterprises with a focus on food security and digital technologies, provision of low-cost financing to meet working capital requirements for SMEs affected by COVID-19. This will be administered by the St. Lucia Development Bank. An allocation of $5 million has been made towards this initiative. A 50% waiver of commercial property taxes for period 2019 to 2020 to landlords who extend moratoriums of a minimum of 20% on a monthly rental charges, allocation of $3.5 million to support waiver of taxes, interest earnings of financial institutions from loans to micro enterprises. The intention of this initiative is to encourage our financial institutions to provide needed capital to small and micro enterprises, provision of $500,000 to bail fund to capitalize the institution to respond to the needs of micro business sector. This will support micro businesses and startups, provision of inputs and related items to the agricultural sector to stimulate domestic demand and strengthen food security. A sum of $7.9 million has been allocated for that initiative. Mr. Speaker, that's just some of the things that were being done. And again, the team of people were the ones helping to negotiate the loans, get the money access on a casual basis. I've heard the Prime Minister say it, he doesn't want to go out and make any promises until he knows the money is there. We didn't have time. And they made sure that that money was there because they took their job responsibly. If we had listened to the SLP to simply shut down the country and wait for the pandemic to recede, we would not have had an economy for them to boast about growth today. That's a fact. That's an absolute fact. And I'll get into more details to show the numbers in comparison to other countries in this region and ask exactly what the member from View Fort South asked. What's the difference? What happened? Why did we contract faster? Or why more? But why have we grown my more? See, it's not the next question. What happened? So Mr. Speaker, again, I hope that we will all celebrate what those persons have done for our country. Mr. Speaker, this crisis called COVID has really created an opportunity for us as a country to take stock, to take stock and to understand that when we demonize tourism, that it's at our own peril. For all those people over the years, Mr. Speaker, who have suggested that there's too much focus on tourism and that tourism is not providing enough linkages back to our economy, well, the social and economic review puts that to rest. And I will go through some of the critical things. The member from View Fort South said that St. Lucia was the largest contracting economy by 24%. And nobody else was in the same region. Well, Antigua contracted by 20%. Dominica contracted by 16.6%. Barbados contracted by 14%. And yet, when we go back and look at it and to see what the recovery has been, when we go to page 10 of the social and economic review, Mr. Speaker, we'll see that Antigua's growth in 2021 was 6.6%. And their growth this year was 8.5%. If we look at their public debt to GDP, their public debt this year went down by 9%. 9 percentage points. Antigua and Barbuda, sorry, Dominica growth of 6.9 and 5.9. Grenada 4.7 and 5.9. St. Kitts minus 0.9%. And this year, 7.7% growth. St. Vincent and the Grenadines 0.8% contraction and then 5% growth. And St. Lucia was 12.2% growth and 18.1% growth. And no other country's public debt to GDP came down as fast as St. Lucia's. St. Lucia's went from 85% to 69.8%, down 16%. The closest one is Antigua that went from 87.4% to 78.5%. So what's the point? The point is is that when the prognosis of the person's members on the opposite side and the SLP were saying that the debt to GDP was going to exceed 100%, for sure. I kept saying it is relative to the GDP. And when your GDP contracts, then your debt to GDP is going to go up. And when your GDP recovers, it's going to come back down. So the fact is that we've had the fastest recovery in our GDPs. And as a result of it, our debt to GDP is at 69%. Now, Mr. Speaker, the question is, how did we recover so fast? And what caused the economy to have contracted initially by 24%. Mr. Speaker, there was a rebase as the former prime minister, the member from View Fort South indicated. And that rebase, which took place, I believe, was in 2019, came out and said that we were underestimating the value of tourism in our economy. And as a result of it, the GDP numbers were amended. And St. Lucia was the first and up until now the only country that that exercise has happened. And that exercise will be taking place everywhere else. So it wasn't apples to apples. The other countries were using the other mechanism. And we were using a new mechanism that was more recognizing the impact of tourism. And so therefore, when tourism went down, based on the model they were using, the impact was going to be greater. It's as simple as that. But more importantly, the question is, how did St. Lucia's economy recover? St. Lucia's economy recovered, Mr. Speaker, because of two things. One, the decision to reopen the border as early as we did. And why was that, Mr. Speaker? Why was that so important? When I was at Air Jamaica, Mr. Speaker, we had 9-11. And so I learned firsthand that the airline industry could stop flying. For almost six days after September 11, the airline industry in the Western world was shut down. And I remember distinctly as to how much money that cost and the bailouts that ensued. Airlines are too big to fail. And so when the airlines got shut down, we're talking about three months, four months, almost a year where they couldn't even come close to getting back to their normal schedules, the governments bailed them out. And we're trying to get them to keep their staff employed. And we knew that there would be an opportunity to get airlines to fly to St. Lucia that would not have normally considered, or to get capacity into St. Lucia that we would not normally have been able to do. And when we reached out to American Airlines, they added a Chicago flight. They added a Dallas flight. JetBlue added four flights out of Newark. They also increased their capacity out of Boston. American also increased its capacity out of Philadelphia. When the British finally allowed British Airways to fly again, immediately British Airways put on flights into St. Lucia and instead of sharing those flights with other countries, four of the flights became dedicated. So it means that double the capacity that we'd had prior. And so if you look at the statistics, Mr. Speaker, and if I take you to page page 93, Mr. Speaker, of the Social and Economic Review, we'll see that stayover rivals peaked at 423,000 in 2019 dropped to 130,000 in 2020. And most of that 130,000 was in the first three months. Because after April, it dropped. 2021, we went to almost 200,000. And last year, we did 356,000. And if you go, Mr. Speaker, to the following page 95, you'll see that US arrivals peaked in 2019 at 191,000, went down to 67,152, and this year they did 210,000. So we had more US arrivals this year than at any time in the history of solution. Now, why do I bring that number up? Why is it so relevant? Because the total number of arrivals, Mr. Speaker, has not recovered to where it was in 2019. We were at 423,000. Now we're only 356,000. And if we go back to page 93, Mr. Speaker, the member from, I seem to be saying his name a lot, View Fort South, indicated about the revenue. Revenue in 2019, remember with 423,000 people, was $2.6 billion. And the revenue this year with less arrivals is 2.8. And how is that mathematically possible? It's because of the increase in the number of US arrivals that you have. An American passenger or guest is going to stay eight nights, nine nights. And it's going to spend in excess of $250 to $300 a night. A person from the Caribbean is only going to stay here on average three or four nights. And it's going to spend $150. The Canadian market's the same thing, Mr. Speaker. So the US market, even though it increased by 30,000 passengers, that 30,000 passengers amounted to a significant increase in the bed nights and of expenditure. I say that because it's a point that we keep missing. Mr. Speaker, if you go to same page 93, here's a number that, again, people are going to be astonished by. In 2019, well, they don't have that data available. So if you go to 2017, Mr. Speaker, you'll see that the cruise ship passengers was 669,000 passengers. But the expenditure or the revenue was $61 million, $61 million. And I say that because cruise passengers coming for the day have a big part to play with taxi drivers and vendors. But the numbers are deceiving. And this is why going to invest all of this money in adding more capacity into cast trees makes no sense. And the member from View Fort South also asked for me to provide evidence. Well, I was the prime minister. I know GPH. Mehmet is an amazing man. It's an amazing company. And they came with a great strategy. And the strategy was to do what? To do for their companies what the Caribbean would not do for itself. So it's the same strategy they had in Europe. Own and manage multiple ports so that when they negotiate with the cruise ships, they're negotiating from a position of strength. And so they came here with a very clear plan. It's a great plan to try to get the management and control of as many ports as possible with the idea of being able to increase the head tax. That's why you saw Carnival and all the other cruise lines going almost hysterical when they signed up Antigua. Now that they're in the process of getting Puerto Rico done and they've gotten the Bahamas done. So getting San Lucia is a significant crown or jewel in their crown. But the benefit is going to them. I know before we left that the cruise lines had already agreed to increase the head tax from $650 to $12. It didn't need GPH to go and do that for you. You could do that for yourself. And even if you take it as a $10 or $12, a $10 increase, a million passenger, that's $10 million a year. If you're going to sign the agreement for 40 years, that's $400 million. So you're going to give up $400 million of revenue to get a $40 million investment. And what's the economic impact going to be? Of having a bigger cruise ship come into castries on day sales. That's not where the money is. Let's take it, but that's not where the money is. The money is in home porting. That's where the money is. And persons who fly in to meet a cruise ship here, pay your airport tax of $100. And some of them pre and post stays. So you get the hotel accommodation. That is where the money is. So member from Viewfort South. How do I know that it was not included in the deal? Because if it was included in the deal, it would have been announced. Where is it? Where was the announcement? And I know that GP did not want to invest in Viewfort. They don't want to invest in Viewfort because it's too big of an investment capital-wise. They would rather spend the $40 million upgrading castries and get the additional revenue. But it does not believe Saint Lucia to do that. And if in fact that the intention was to have done and put Viewfort no way possible, knowing the persons that I know them, that they would have not bragged about that. They bragged about everything else. Where was the announcement about Viewfort? Where was it? No announcement. Now all of a sudden a fuss is being made and you're now going to say, look, this is what you wrote in your own in their own report. Negotiations are beginning now. It's only now you're figuring it out that and I would say to you member from from Viewfort South in 1997 is when you should have put the cruise ship port in Viewfort. That would have been the cheapest way to have created the greatest economic impact in Viewfort overnight. So when you want to come here and pontificate on history and interpret numbers the way you want to, you were the prime minister, the minister of finance for 15 years. All these projects you're talking about, why didn't you get them done? Why don't they have a cultural center if you think it was so important? Why took you so long to put administrative center in there? And you know why the administrative center did not go up? Why? There was no planning approval. The land had not even been transferred to NIC. Sure. And also when you ticket, you're going to spend 70 million dollars. You're going to spend 70 million dollars, which is going to be over two million dollars of interest a year. You're not even renting space in the South for two million dollars. It makes no sense. Absolutely no sense, Mr. Speaker. But if the member was genuinely concerned about the people in the South, he would have done that work long ago. There's no excuse. You had 15 years. In fact, you had 10 years you didn't do it. You had five years to think about it. You came back for another five years and you still didn't do it. You can't hold anybody else responsible for that. There's one person responsible. You, nobody else. Just you. So don't run away from that. You were the prime minister. You were the minister of finance. You were the minister of economic development. You were the minister of everything. And you could not make that happen. And you genuinely really believe that those things by themselves are going to solve the problem. No, you go and march against progress. The same horse racing track. So here you have an opportunity of creating a horse racing track to include the horse racers in view for and to give them a platform that one day that we can see them being a jockey at Kentucky Derby. One day we can see them to be a jockey somewhere else because that's where the opportunity starts. The start starts. It starts international and the reality is they were going to be included. We never would even allow them for one race. Oh, Mr. Speaker. I love when he wants to say that. So we opened it up and it had to be certified to put young people on that track that track without training and the horses being trained properly is going to be a problem. But all the programs were there. They're already were part of it. Over 36 young people were already at working at DSH. And again, you want to say to be inclusive. Why isn't this government not called up tailing themselves? Why are they not convinced tail? We've known we're having more protocols. He's the one who spent 30 million US dollars. It's his money. His money, no passport money, not one cent of passport money. You all can't show one cent of passport money. And if you could have, you would have. None. Zero. They spent 30 million US dollars. Remember for Microsoft, you have 10 minutes left. Half an hour. Mr. Speaker. Sorry, remember for because of the election, I couldn't see your light to answer. Mr. Speaker, I wish to involve Salin Oda 3210 to allow the leader of the opposition, member for Mikul South, an additional half hour to complete his presentation. You've got two hours. You have a counter proposal. Mr. Speaker, I wish to counter this. The leader of the government business. You have not yet been recognized. You are now recognized. Mr. Speaker, I wish to propose that the leader of the opposition be given another 15 minutes to finish this presentation. Mr. Speaker, I should remain with our vote first. Well, you are aware of the rules of debate that the amendment must proceed before the substantive proposal. So we have to go first of all with the amendment. The question is that standing order 3210 be invoked to allow the member for Mikul South and leader of the opposition an additional 15 minutes in which to conclude his presentation. And I'll put the question as many as a lot of opinions here. As many as a country opinions, you know, I think the eyes have it, the eyes have it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, it's amazing. We use convention when it's convenient, right? Convention as a leader of the opposition would normally get the same amount of time as the no, I am rebutting it. No, I'm rebutting it. You know, Mr. Speaker, this is the semantics that everybody wants to play and it's important for me to take some time out for that. Members, members, members, calm down, calm down. The presiding officer is bound only by the standing orders, which prescribe that the mover of emotion, unless there is a motion moved to give him more time, is limited to two hours. Any member responding to a motion is limited to one hour. This same time as the leader of government business or that is not in the standing orders. So let us not proceed along those lines. Mr. Speaker, nor is the appointment of a deputy speaker of the House in the standing orders. So, Mr. Speaker, I think that View Fort is actually a very good case study for the difference between the United Workers Party and SLP. In May of May 14th of 2013, I'm happy to make it a document in the House, Mr. Speaker. There was a study that was done by the government in San Lucia and it basically says job seekers are unemployed to job openings by geographic area. And what it shows, Mr. Speaker, is that in the case of View Fort, that there were 24 people looking for jobs, whereas in other constituencies, castries was 16, grossly was five, souffle was 14. And so the reality is, Mr. Speaker, the problem in View Fort had been identified from a long time ago. There was not enough economic activity to meet the needs of the people in View Fort. And so when you look at the program we came in, because after reading this study, a huge push on the south. So you're talking about, Mr. Speaker, the DSH project, which was an international horse racing track, a university, retail spots, office spaces, and also residential spaces. Because of the seeping of the garbage dump into the mangrove, the mangrove was abandoned as a development area. And instead, they ended up going to Il Pirata. And Il Pirata was to develop a cruise ship port terminal, commercial area, residential, and hotels. The expansion of HIA airport. And what's interesting to me, Mr. Speaker, is that the member from Castries East said in an interview with Janika Simon that it would only be a madman that would think that tourism was going to recover. And he specifically said, Mr. Speaker, that the HIA airport should not be proceeded with, because there was no way that a sensitivity analysis that existed, meaning that the number of arrivals would come back and the revenue would be in place. So, Mr. Speaker, if I can take you to, I take a page 113, Mr. Speaker, the fuel surcharge in 2000, not the fuel surcharge, sorry, the travel tax, Mr. Speaker, in 2018, 2019 was 4.8 million. 113, Mr. Speaker. In 2019, 2020, it went down to 4.1. 2020, 2021, it went down to $800,000. 2021, 2022 was at 2.2 million. And this year, sorry, it's back to $5.8 million. So in fact, it's at a higher level than it's ever been. In two years, the travel tax, Mr. Speaker. Sorry, the airport tax had a high of $38 million in 2019, 2020. It went to $13 million, $20 million, and this year was $37.4 million. So for the member to say, where is the money going to come from for the pay for the airport and everything else, this is testimony to the resilience of the tourism industry to have been impacted by that level. It's also testimony, Mr. Speaker, that in the budget itself, if you go to the, sorry, social and economic review, Mr. Speaker, if you go to page 12, you see where it says, while manufacturing's face considerable increases in their cost of production during the review period, such as imported inputs, electricity and fuel manufacturing output increase on account of higher demand from hotels. That performance was largely buoyed by a pronounced increase in the value of alcohol beverages influenced by the robust tourism activity. Our closest sectors estimated recovered partially by 9.8% in 2022, following two consecutive years of decline. This was primarily on account of improving domestic demand led by resurgence in the tourism activity and regional exports. Bananas, everything that grew in this, in this economy is right back to tourism. Now I say that because if, if in fact, Mr. Speaker, that this government really believed that they're the ones with the architects of the recovery that we're seeing today, which has been predominantly on the back of tourism and construction. Why did you stop the construction projects? Why did you stop Huna airport? Why did you stop St. Jude's? Why have you stopped the roads? Why did you stop the housing developments in shock and in tavern? Why didn't you finish? If you really believed in tourism, why have you not finished the the Rodney Bay Road? Instead, what have you done? Imagine, I want the people of St. Lucia to really understand this. This is how much this government cares. Everybody's been complaining about roads and the road that they went to fix was the road from the Groza Lake junction to Pigeon Island. I want you all to know that and the road to the back from landings back into Groza Lake, that's the road that they fixed. The jazz road. That's how important it is. And you take $8 million at a time like this when people are suffering to put into a jazz festival, a jazz festival that you cannot even successfully go and market. You're marketing it, but but airlift, airlift now, airlift now has has significantly reduced. There's no flights to Philadelphia. There's no flights to Boston. There's no flights to Newark. All you have is you have a daily jet blue flight to New York, a Delta flight to Atlanta, American flight to Charlotte, American flight to Miami, daily flight to London. Where are all the other flights? You all knew you were going to do the jazz festival? How are you going to get people here? You're going to put on one or two extra flights in that week? What's going to happen to the rest of the summer in St. Lucia? So, Mr. Speaker, all the evidence is that this is a government that does not even understand what they're doing. And that they want to sit here and lay claim to the growth, the hero, that they're the ones who did all of this. You're not even one person, Mr. Speaker, has been able to explain where the growth came from. Not one. Not one. So, Mr. Speaker, I want to get to some important things because the reality is or the truth is that the most, two most important things in this country right now is the cost of living and crime. And I noticed that crime has become a bad word in the house. Nobody wants to talk about it. 30 murders for the year. I think the Prime Minister was on record in Trinidad saying that at the pace we're going at, we're going to be two murders a week. So that's 104 murders for the year. I hope he's wrong. I hope he's wrong. That's his projection. I hope he's wrong. Maybe he knows something I don't know. So, Mr. Speaker, the fuel prices increase from 1350 to 1795. Cooking gas. Cooking gas has gone from $22 to $44. Bus fares, $2 a day. Telecommunications, we just got to notice from flow that they're increasing prices again. Right? To no more than 2.9% increase, they said. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the Prime Minister. Mr. Speaker, I took the benefit, I have some products because the Prime Minister said he doesn't go to grocery stores. So I said I'll bring the grocery store to him. So Mr. Speaker, if we take a household making $1,500 a month, and that they're going to end up having to buy groceries and live off groceries for $500 a month, we go and see what they can buy for that. And that's not just for them. That's for a family. So a single mother making $1,500 a month feeding two children. And go and see what they're doing. Mr. Speaker, frozen chicken mixed $20. Chicken wings $19. Turkey wings $14. Laundry detergent $10. Moisturizing soap $10. Mr. Speaker, the people are crying out in this country and this government is playing lip service, Mr. Speaker. Cooking oil $900 has gone from $15.85 to $20.95. Cheese has increased from $13.99 to $16.95. Butter has increased from $8.95 to $9.95. Milk has increased from $2.85 a tin to $4.55 a tin. Fish has increased from $8 per pound to $12.50 a pound. Mr. Speaker, this is what the bread and butter issues in this country are right now. And what is more egregious, Mr. Speaker, is that this government in their own reports have shown two things. One, that they made $70 million more in excise tax than they were projected last year. And they put on another $100 million in this budget of earnings on excise tax. But what's interesting, Mr. Speaker, because I don't want to lose time on it, this government has come here to make us believe that there's such a caring government that they're going to put on a levy, right? A levy of two and a half percent to do what? To help health and security, correct? Is that what it's for? Health and security. And when you go to your own budget, the allocation for health this year is down $10 million. From $73 million, from $83 million to $73 million. Well, let's get there. Let's pay K-man. So where's the $30 million going? Where's the $30 million going? If you knew that you really were going to put this tax on, and that's what this tax is, because you know what? I believe that this government was actually going to increase the vet. And I say that because nobody can explain where this new tax is going to be imposed. Is it a sales tax? Is it a duty tax? Is it an import of duty? Is it going to be on fuel? So it means that here it is on one hand, you're offering the fishermen a dollar rebate. After two years of saying that you're going to do it, you're still coming to this house to say I'm going to give it, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. You don't think that's embarrassing? Aren't you embarrassed? Aren't you embarrassed? You still can't tell people what the mechanism is going to be. And then you turn around now, and you're going to charge a two and a half levy percent levy on the fuel and cooking gas, as if it's not high enough already. You all have no shame? You have no concerns for the people of this country? How do you have no idea as to how to run this economy? You're going to do that? I know, Mr. Speaker. I'm at a loss. Now, Mr. Speaker, very, very, very importantly, I know this one is going to be hurtful. I know there's going to be jumping up and down. So that's why it's important that we get the proper page, Mr. Speaker. But if we go to page, page 40, Mr. Speaker of the social economic review, caution note for 2022 annual. It says, despite the current setbacks, the CSO has made every attempt to provide you with accurate and reliable data based solely on what was obtained at the time and therefore has reverted to its pre-COVID-19 methodology of data collection for the labor force survey. Any use of the results needs to take into account and consideration, the aforementioned limitations. Mr. Speaker, if you then go to page, if you go to page, Mr. Speaker, table 31, table 31 is the main labor force indicators, 110. And it says the CSO's cautionary note on the LFS results of 2022 which advises that these estimates are not comparable to the estimates for previous years. So, Mr. Speaker, all those solutions who have heard the government say that the unemployment rate is at 16.1% and are puzzled because they know and they feel like it's much higher. And the reality is, if we don't use, the truth is, if we don't use the right numbers, we're going to adopt the wrong policies. This country and the people, the cost of living is killing them. And what is the most egregious part about it? Is it you had the ability to do something about it? You earned the money. You said you were elected to help people, help them. Why would you allow the gas price to go past 14.95? Why would you allow cooking gas to go to $22? Mr. Speaker, this is what $170 is going to buy you. That's what it's going to buy you. Toothpaste. For one month, huh? Eggs. Cricks. Cheese. Mr. Speaker, $22. And based on the new tax that's coming in by July 1st, that's going to be higher. So when the guy said he has to use, was it line to put under his arms? Maybe he's right. Women, tampers, sanitation items, all of those items are going to be increasing as of July 1st. More importantly, not even more importantly, that is what is going to be affected. But in addition to that, Mr. Speaker, no notice to your productive sector, no advance warning that you're increasing, increasing the tax. So everybody who has now put all their pricing out for the next year, year and a half, all the prices are going up, all what they're paying on liquor, what they're paying on chemicals, what they're paying on supplies, and nobody knows how the tax is being implemented. If it's being implemented at the port, that means we're paying that on it. So is it really an increase in the service charge from six percent to eight and a half percent? Is that what's going on? You know, Mr. Speaker, I had to do this because the prime minister said he doesn't go to the grocery store. He doesn't go. I'd be happy to do that. You know, Mr. Speaker, there's a group of people who actually believe, who actually believe that there's a scam taking place, that the government is deliberately having a shortage of sugar, and that is forcing people to buy other sugar so the government doesn't have to subsidize it. But that's this level of cynicism that's coming in. People believe that the 12 and a half percent, the 12 and a half percent you've given on plywood and everything else doesn't apply to the little man. Cheese. Go ahead. Your sugar. Oil. Peanut butter. Okay. Milk. Rice. Okay. So that's it. Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to go back for a second, because again, when we talk about the linkages. Remember for, for, for, we could solve throughout five minutes. No, that's what the point is. The Pampers are not included. That's $170 and there's a whole bunch of items that are not included. Toilet paper is not there. I know you don't need any toilet paper. All right. So, Mr. Speaker, that's the reality of what people are facing in this country. And you all want to come here. And if you genuinely understood what the, how the economy is grown, you would be growing it. You would have continued to do all the projects. But no, you, like my good friend from Castries North wants to come and say about the Rodney Bay Road, that there was all this corruption. And as when he came over to y'all, where is it? But the fact is, it was a fixed contract for $15 million. Two roundabouts, sidewalks, four lane highway, and a public bypass. And now the valuation once the project was stopped and you have to pay the contractor is $22 million. And you're now going to have to find another $15 million to finish it. That's the genius of the Pampers on the other side. That's how malicious that you guys are. That you're willing to put the country through a pace just to protect the victory. Because that's what it's always been. It's to put people worse and to protect the victory. That is what this has all been about all the time. So, Mr. Speaker, here it is. You have a government that's telling us that they're doing a security tax, a levy for security and health. There is no increase. In fact, there's a decline in the allocation for health. And there's only an increase of $10 million for security. There was no local sugar. There was no local sugar. Correct. And that's what they're doing to the people. When they cannot get the sugar from the supply line, they have to buy that sugar. So that's what's going on, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to speak about linkages back into tourism. And I want to really congratulate Barron's in that regard, Mr. Speaker. I remember for years speaking to Ronald that he has these big bottles. And when the big bottles go on the table, it's not easy for the hotels to dispense of it. And it means he's losing the branding opportunity. And my understanding is now he's come out with a new product which is going to be ideal. And I certainly would like to convince the Minister of Tourism. I certainly willing to put in my own two cents as well. And the Minister of Agriculture that when I was at Sandals the other day for a Republic Bank meeting, I noticed that they didn't have our local products. And I think that we really have to support persons that are doing things in a meaningful way. Because it is when the tourist comes and gets to see this brand and taste this brand that when they go back home that they can order it. And that's a significant linkage between tourism and manufacturing. If you look at your own statistics, agro processing in particular has increased with the increase in tourism. Agriculture has increased because of tourism. And so even when my friend, the member of agriculture wants to speak about an increase in output of bananas of 11%. But what he didn't say was that the revenue is down 13.6% because it's a region and it's not sustainable. Your banana industry is not going to be sustainable if exclusively you're going to be selling to the regional market. It's not there. And we all know the truth. The fact is if we allow the banana sector to die, it's going to have a significant impact on everybody else. We talk about the last thing, Mr. Speaker, is that I'm surprised that the Prime Minister would put that this reference to corruption. So if we want to really resolve crime in this country, Mr. Speaker, it starts in cabinet. The level of corruption of members in your own cabinet has to be addressed. This situation with bananas. How could you have a piece of land, Mr. Speaker, that was valued in 2013 at almost $7 million. And in 2021, it was revalued to be at 3.5. I never look us out. Your time is up. So just give you 30 seconds to wrap up. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The crime situation is serious. The government needs to address it in their own cabinet. The Prime Minister keeps on playing this game that he is the big tough guy and the buck stops with him. We have not seen that. And we have to set the example as leaders. There's too many examples, Mr. Speaker, of members who are doing that, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.