 Welcome once more to another edition of in focus a production of the government information service national television network and We once again bring you the policies of the government of st. Lucia the plans as well as some of the Intention that the government has and what they are actually doing for the improvement of lives in st. Lucia with me once more It's my co-host Alyssa Joseph. Good morning. These are very interesting program We have planned for today. So maybe it's a good opportunity to say good morning to you And just before we go into our new segment Thank you so much morning Ryan and morning to our listeners and W vent as well as to our viewers on Ntn as well on Facebook Well first off in our new segment their fourth annual Caribbean medical legal aid forensic symposium Opened here last Friday the symposium centered on the theme protecting the children of the Caribbean from mild treatment and abuse And it was hosted by the st. Lucia forensic science services more in this report from Janelle Norville The Department of Justice in st. Lucia and staff at the st. Lucia forensic science services Share the common regional goal of improving the role and relevance of forensics in criminal investigations Director of st. Lucia forensic science services, Fernanda Henry Explained that it is important for forensics to play a more pivotal role in identifying mild treatment and abuse of children Thus enabling a general decline by prosecuting more perpetrators Sending a clear message of zero tolerance of child abuse and mild treatment in the society This gathering brings all stakeholders together in open and honest dialogue To get to the crux of our issues to learn and to identify the signs the non accidental physical injuries a subtle often Misinterpreted manifestations of an abused child all in an effort to develop and more critically to implement realistic and culturally relevant measures to bring about change We are indeed grateful that you chose to be here today The protection of the youth is a major priority and remains a major concern for lawmakers and enforces the world over St. Lucia's director of public prosecution stash ring green Noted that despite the steps taken to protect the young and vulnerable the unfortunate realities that they still become victims of abuse This abuse he says has detrimental effects on the children and sometimes results in death The director of public prosecution shared his concerns one major concern of my office is The inordinate delay in the trying of matters alleging the sexual abuse of children I must mention that my office has only recently dealt with cases of this nature Being as old as 12 years This is simply not tenable in a modern society Many young victims who receive no form of counseling subsequent to the alleged abuse find themselves waiting at least Seven years in some instances for their matters to be heard by then You are now asking a young adult to relive these horrible moments of their childhood It cannot be overstated therefore that we need to try all allegations of Child abuse expeditiously Prime Minister of St. Lucia the Honourable Alan Shastney indicated that it must be ensured that there is an effective system in place To protect young people the Prime Minister noted that given the sensitivity and importance of the matter at hand it requires more attention and public discourse and it should be a priority for all governments throughout the region and Living in a world that we have today and where there are so many New elements that come into play social media online So many new peer pressures that have existed Young people who unfortunately may be growing up in households that they themselves don't have proper examples But even if they don't there is a requirement. There is a necessity for the state to protect And we now know when the judicial system that we have Evidence is critical and we're dealing with a very sensitive issue So it's not only the collection of evidence But also in terms of how we going to dispense fair a fair judgment One that takes everything into consideration because sometimes Taking away a person's family member may actually end up doing more harm than good not in all cases But but we have a very sensitive issue to deal with the symposium which brings together stakeholders from various fields Including law enforcement the judiciary medical and forensic field is scheduled for the 15th to the 16th of November 2019 for the government information service. I am general Norville Prime Minister Hon. Alan Chastney has reiterated government's commitment to the citizen safety as of line in the medium term development plan for 2019-2022 The plan speaks to the strengthening of the island's capacity for investigation and prosecution an integral element is Surveillance against that backdrop Hon. Chastney has revealed an increase in the stock of closed circuit television Or CCTV cameras on island and as we hear from Chanel novel not only are more cameras being installed But the technological capabilities are cut in edge As part of the government's efforts of restructuring the economy and putting the country on a sustainable path to growth It developed a medium-term development plan for the period 2019 to 2022 This plan identifies six key areas including citizen safety Under which the government aims to achieve a 45% reduction in serious crimes by the end of the strategy term in 2022 and a 30% reduction in repeat offending by that same year This radical and long-overdue approach according to Prime Minister the Hon. Alan Chastney will focus on better policing Greater efficiency in the legal system the rehabilitation of offenders and strengthening the justice system The Prime Minister explained that the rules in Lucia police force has been equipped with new resources to help it execute its duties more effectively These resources include but are not limited to 180 new CCTV cameras with 11 million dollars already allocated to secure another 380 cameras to be installed across the island I'm putting a new communication system So that all of the the police officers going out now have a VHS system in their vehicles All of the police stations now have VHS systems So in fact, we have a different communication system that integrates the entire police force the firemen and Also marine police have been included. So they've got waterproof Handsets we now have a centralized call center that both fire and Police emergencies come straight to that command center that command center is also now Attached to the cameras So if you make a phone call and they happens to be a camera in your vicinity Immediately upon the screen that comes up and we now have crisis rooms meaning that we have rooms with multiple of TVs monitors and so that if there's a crisis taking place on the country That they has a team that can be dedicated to that without affecting the other day-to-day operations Police statistics indicate an increase in burglaries robberies and vehicular theft across the island With the aim of reducing crime by 10% in 2019 Prime Minister Shasne highlighted a thrust towards increasing boots on the ground Already 14 new officers have joined the worst in Ushua police force The proposed border control unit is to come on stream Utilizing the expertise of highly trained police officers who have been stationed at the immigration department He indicated that the judiciary is also being bolstered with a number of magistrates being hired The Prime Minister underscored the importance of the judiciary in the crime fighting strategy Clearly guns are a problem. And while you have to only have a licensed gun. I am very disturbed By the fact that the magistrates in particular continue to Allow people who have been convicted or on remand for other crimes and are being caught again with illegal firearms and ammunition and They're been given bail for a very little amount of money And I have to say I have to join my voice in recent days of the rastamen who were arrested and charged with having seeds and given an eight thousand dollar fine and confined to jail Particularly in light of the discourse that's taking place. I mean and so how can that same magistrate? turn around and Give somebody with an illegal firearm less time or no time in jail and give them bail For less than five thousand dollars The public too must get on board as community and social clubs and neighborhood watches are all integral to fighting crime Prime Minister Shasnev asserted that crime must be tackled on a holistic front for the government information service. I am general novel The Ministry of Tourism launches a study to assess the economic impact of tourism on the local economy The ministry has made significant headway in the establishment of the tourism satellite account TSA The TSA is a standard statistical framework and the main tool for the economic measurement of tourism It provides credible data on the impact of tourism and the associated employment and St. Lucia's balance of payments It also provides information on tourism human resource characteristics and is a powerful tool for designing economic policies related to tourism development Minister for tourism information and broadcasting culture and creative industries Honourable Dominic fading explained the benefits to St. Lucia The tourism satellite account will significantly improve How we capture the impact of tourism so taxes that are paid to government revenue Revenue parts in the hotel sector average daily rates in the hotel sector jobs in the tourism sector Linkages in the tourism sector. What is the dollar value? and so what we are able to do now by the with the establishment of the tourism satellite account is to give a comprehensive overview of how tourism is Making a an impact on the local economy. What is the real contribution of tourism to the? Economic fortunes the economic development. How is tourism playing a role in the sustainable national economic development of our country the implementation of the TSA is being fueled by the recognition that it will serve to increase and improve knowledge of tourism's importance relative to overall economic activity to the home country assisting the development of more efficient tourism policies and Employment and creating awareness among the various players Directly and indirectly involved in the tourism sector of its economic importance and by extension its role in all industries Involved in the production of goods and services demanded by visitors that includes the agriculture sector tourism minister Honourable Dominic fading very soon We're taking a presentation to cabinet and the consultation is almost completed I know that the template has been fairly advanced and this is being piloted by the Department of Statistics When completed, this is going to allow us to make more informed policy decisions about tourism TSA was developed by the World Tourism Organization The organization of economic cooperation and development the statistical office of the European communities and the United Nations statistics division Now the disaster vulnerability reduction project the DVRP has played a major role in the Rehabilitation of the denry infant school and he sent one of the details for us The denry infant school has been reconstructed under the disaster vulnerability reduction project The initiative is aimed at building climate resilient communities across St. Lucia Mary Flavia principle of the denry infant school Explained that the school had been experiencing to might issues as well as flooding and leaks. I know for sure that the government would send in persons to treat the building for termites But a few months down the line the issue would resurface For storms and hurricanes there was once where part of the ceiling was gone Because of a storm so it was that's where there was a delay in us beginning again You know starting education all over again because the roof had to be fixed Then lately Just before the new facility was built then you'd have one leak surfacing after another Flavia explained that an improved elevated structure Including a concrete roof a lobby a staff room and additional washrooms has been constructed To ensure that the denry infant school is more resilient and accommodating The classrooms are more spacious. There are sick rooms and showers. I Must make note of a ramp This is a special feature at the school that is very welcomed It would take care of of persons with mobility issues not necessarily students But persons visiting persons working at the school at one point in time They might have an issue that they might need to utilize the ramp we have a Fenced facility that is new to us because at the other side only one building was fenced So it caused a problem with security The principal expressed gratitude to the government of st. Lucia for modernizing the denry infant school We are very grateful in denry and at the denry infant school for this new building We are able to work more efficiently and effectively Effectively this will impact positively on the students and the staff of the school. I am hoping that The other schools on the island are privy to such Facilities under the DVRP Drainage works has also been done to alleviate flooding in the vicinity of the denry infant school From the government information service. I am Anisia Antoine reporting There you have it our new segment where this is quite some interesting items we brought today And we can start off quickly by looking at the fourth annual Caribbean medical legal and forensic symposium We had a precursor to it last week and we had a lot of revelations there But we had in that clip the director public prosecutions Didn't say how tedious it was and frustrating to his office that a number of offenses and particularly that of abuse of minors Yeah, and it is It is a hamburging thing because there are so many different players involved in that process of ensuring that Children are protected And of course trying those cases are never easy. I think that within the judiciary they've been several Changes to allow for a better facilitation whether it be given video testimony Ensuring that the person who are interfacing with the child victims themselves are Better trained in able in enabling the children to give their their testimony So there's a lot of frustration and plus then you have in as much as we have a number of cases coming to light There is still very much underreporting where that is concerned You still have the idea that perhaps the families may not want to go through once the process has started They may decide well, I don't want to go through this anymore. And so there are several hurdles through which the that those who are within the system who are Charged with the protection and ensuring that children are not taken advantage of they have to go through So we hoping coming out of this conference that there will be some very solid Recommendations that will be implemented and we did hear from the director of forensic sciences That they are very keen on their end of ensuring that that sort of care and protection is given to children So it's a sort of week and see very concerning and it is a story very much related in terms of citizen safety And we did hear the prime minister speak about, you know, the judicial services and some of the The punishment not really much in the crimes And it's something that we also heard the national the minister for national security He was on our show. He has been out in the media and also hammering that point home that and I think the police commissioner himself has said so While you have the police officers going out they put in their lives on the line trying to nab or you know, these these perpetrators When they are before the court, it's a completely different ballgame and so So all of the work that the police has done really reduces itself to Who's the better lawyer in the courtroom? perhaps The discretion of the magistrate or the judge Because they're all sorts of mitigating factors that come into place. It's a monthful of offense Are there, you know, perhaps the person's propensity is being propelled by certain circumstances in their life And but we want to give them a second chance and all of those things But then the society remains vulnerable at the end of the day And so this is a situation not only in Senua we grappling with it I've also heard the prime minister in Trinidad and Tobago quite recently say the same thing that he challenged judiciary and he even asked the question as to sometimes he thinks that you're not living in Trinidad and Tobago Because people coming before the courts with gun crimes are given nothing more than a slap on the wrist I've heard it said by prime minister the prime minister of Jamaica has also made certain statements so perhaps, you know, it is a conversation it may be a hard conversation and The judiciary is out of the purview of anyone we can't dictate to to the judiciary But there has to be an indication that we are all on the same page It was citizen safety is something that really concerning the society in general But the other end of that is the CCTV that that the you know that the government has Invested another 11 million dollars in now in our comment section here this morning I've seen that someone is asking well, why say that you installing the cameras just install them I think it's important for The the nation to know what the government is doing I don't think there's been any Diverging of where exactly the cameras are at whatever but even as a citizen I need to know that I'm being watched and that's another thing Because in some way somehow it is part of your privacy and that sort of thing So we need to know that the cameras are there We need to know that the government is doing what it needs to do to ensure our citizen safety. So I think that that's a Long short response to that with a ministry of tourism looking at much closer to impact of the industry and the islands economy This is something that a lot of people have been debates in Age-old debate as to whether we're really feeling the impact of the tour especially cruise tourism So the the the passengers come off the vessels and we wonder exactly well are they buying anything they going on tours They're not really patronizing restaurants and so forth. And so this satellite account is really going to give us a firm fixed idea as to what exactly is happening where revenue generation is concerned out of tourism So it's it's going to look at not just what is spent, you know hotels or Come to the ship or taxes for the government But really looking at every single aspect following the dollar if you will Following that tourist dollar and see exactly where it lands. I'm excited to see This really take off and for us to be able to get a full report back On what those findings are so it will be able to give us a better sense again Of how the government decides to do its policies where tourism is concerned It's for sure because you've heard a lot of the local stakeholders saying that you know Maybe they're not feeling the impact of industry that much or finalize them But just to not to cut you short, but you know often that is said by people who are not Directly involved, but people don't understand too that tourism is something that it is it also brings so much Indirect benefits and so while you may not be someone in the tourism industry People you are benefiting from that tourist dollar So that I think the satellite account will be able to really laid out for people to understand how we all Benefit from that tourist dollar. Okay the rehabilitation to the denry in Francisco certainly a good boost of them from the disaster vulnerability reduction project and It's one of the things, you know taking care of our children and we just celebrated International Universal Children's Day We know that the denry infant school They've been dealing with the the issue of poor conditions for quite some time the DVR P I believe doing something great because it not only it's not just as a refurbishment Giving you a new space, but it's giving you a resilient space So I think this is really like a template for other schools on island Ensuring that climate resilience is something that we keep In our mindset when we are doing our planning So happy for the denry infant school and for the DVR P and looking forward to other Projects like this under the DVR P. Well, that's gonna wrap up our new segment. We'll be back on in focus I am a child. I am HIV positive. I am a Muslim I'm a journalist. I am gay. I'm a political activist. I'm differently able. I Am Chinese and me. I'm a little plus size The first step toward change is awareness The second step is acceptance of individuality and differences within all of us a message brought to you by the Department of Health and Wellness In St. Lucia cancer is the second leading cause of death One in every six St. Lucia males and one in every five St. Lucia females will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime Smoking alcohol lack of exercise stress and poor eating habits increase the risk of cancer Changing these is our best chance at preventing up to 50% of cancer Sometimes though in spite of these efforts cancer still happens Knowing what to look for is our second best chance for early detection and treatment Be informed. Let's talk Contact us at St. Lucia Cancer Society telephone 452 1538 Hypertension is a deadly disease that is common in St. Lucia We depend on blood pressure monitors to determine if our blood pressure is too high or too low Should the reading on these measuring devices being correct, we are literally putting our lives at risk Doctors caregivers and patients get your blood pressure meters verified by the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards to ensure the accuracy of measuring devices Look for a green pass sticker on the blood pressure meter at your next visit to the doctor The correct reading can mean the difference between life and death For more information contact the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards at 456 05 46 or email SLBS at candw.lc or visit the website at www.slbs.org.lc St. Lucia Bureau of Standards making quality and standards our way of life Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us to remind you you're watching in focus and we also welcome our listeners on WVENT 93.5 FM. We're also live on Facebook. We've already had some comments come on This has been monitoring that already and later in our program will attempt to get your calls in 468 2162 Listen part of our program where we introduce our guests or viewers and all these things and I'm always very happy to do so Today we have with us the Minister for Economic Development Housing Urban Renewal Transport and Civiliation it's the Honourable Guy Joseph. We also want to say the Parliamentary Representative for Castering South East You always want to make sure we see that right? It's very good to have you because we've been Calling your office for quite some time We've been very eager to have you on and so we've just very ecstatic lots to talk about this morning I think first we probably need to explain to our Viewers and listeners Exactly what the Ministry of Economic Development Housing Urban Renewal Transport and Civilation is all about I think for the economic development aspect They'll have speak for themselves But just to say by by way of correlating that it is some responsible for national planning Can you break that down for us? Well, it used to be first of all, let me say Pleasant good day to all viewers and listeners. It's a pleasure to be here with you on the program today The Ministry of Economic Development the part of economic development used to be one with the Ministry of Finance Now what we have is a separation of the the rules and functions of the two entities But continue to work very closely together it is that part of analyzing what is happening Developing a plan for the growth of the economy So the the medium term you have the short term the medium term and the long term strategic planning for the overall development of the country and That entails quite a lot We deal with all of the international financing institutions Whether it be the World Bank the CDB the IDB the EU even Government to government like the Taiwanese projects and things of that nature So the Ministry of Economic Development is responsible for this. We've been trying to work out so for example when Pemandu came in and the the six strategic areas of focus was identified The Ministry of Economic Development is also a main Entity in this whole equation as far as where the economy is focused And what we should be doing to get Saint Lucia to the level that it needs to be the prime minister has indicated on several occasions previously that the aim of Saint Lucia is to double its GDP because we are performing way below our Ability and so or our potential if that can be done Then Saint Lucia would be on the path to meeting Its potential and that is where the focus of the Ministry of Economic Development Comes into place. What are the plans? So take for example We into we are also responsible for housing just to highlight a point on this What type of housing structure is suited for what we want that would have the greatest impact on our local economy as an example And these are things that people don't pay much attention to but these are the areas of focus that we are going into So that it's not just whether you spend a few dollars more on Doing something, but it is the impact that it is going to have on your overall economy And you bought the permanent and for some people they don't understand why it was necessary for the government to go that route Can you explain to us? the the The the rationale for it the thinking behind Your your focus areas and even how how do we expect to double? our quadruple out of our GDP Okay, so if you look at countries similar to us in size In population countries that are maybe smaller than us and have a smaller Population yet still that GDP is Way above ours sometimes more than double The difficulty we've had in this country over the years is that People don't want to think that we can accomplish and we can achieve so so when We like a certain comfort zone and once you go in to take people out of their comfort zone To think of something outside of this then it becomes a challenge and they tell you pie in the sky Politicians talking again, but if you don't dream big If you don't look you don't have a goal and and you are going to say we are going to continue to grow this economy at 1% at 0% or in the negative we cannot survive in the foreseeable future Just to meet our debt obligations the minimum growth requirements We need is about five to six percent Just to keep pace with where we are so easy to be hasn't the case exactly so You cannot be running a country the affairs of a country and at the same time that is what just to survive It's like you're running the country hand to mouth Already so many of our people are struggling living hand to mouth if the country if you are not growing the economy And if you are not looking at the potential What are we measuring ourselves against? So the idea of the payment do team coming in we've had a challenge in St. Lucia over Implementation over the years so the ideas are there, but the rollout of the project So take up a project. I'm responsible for DVRP DVRP started way back after hurricane Thomas We are still struggling for implementation of these projects and I'll be the first to say that I Criticize the previous government for the level of implementation of projects on the DVRP I am disappointed as we speak that we have not been able to do more for project Implementation now when you speak this way people tend to get the feeling Oh, you are saying things that shows that you're not as effective as you ought to be But the first thing we must do is accept where we are Realize what the problems are and take the necessary steps to correct it So bringing in payment do is not that they have ideas that are so much better than us But when you have a proven model that it has been rolled out in another place and has been successful Rather than trying to find your way through it and making it work all by yourself You fall back on the experiences of these people and you build your own team So you have a number of St. Lucian persons within the public service and outside of the public service Working alongside with these people so that when destined ends in St. Lucia Then you expect that your team of local people will be able to carry out the mandate Because it is one thing for us to say we are not doing what we should be doing And I'm just sitting there and waiting by some stroke of luck that it's going to happen It is not going to happen successful people You accept they win a lottery or something Generally plan and Execute and there's a road map towards how we are going to accomplish how we are going to achieve And that is what the government is doing Setting a road map giving people something to believe in that it is not business as usual So when we spoke about building a new St. Lucia, it's not just Infrastructure we are talking about it's your human capital, which is your greatest resource How can we maximize the output of everything in St. Lucia? That is the focus that Perman do brings to the table to help us Measure everything because sometimes we are measured against the wrong things and you will end up with the wrong result Well, I think just to emphasize the point as well the concept is one that the Caribbean Caricom within itself has noticed and in part of dealing with the lack of Implementation of projects across the region did encourage government to to go that route and find out how best and so there is a plan coming out of Caricom for the idea of implementation things in Lucia is also part of that pilot project as well We've often heard coming out of the CDB coming out of Some of the the IDB this lending agencies also talking about the the rate at which Projects are implemented and that also affects The rollout of loans and all of those agreements so just to underscore that point They're if I permitted to to make a quick point on this All the fault is not with us and within with our inability to implement Some of these international Institutions their requirements are way beyond what because it's like a one-size-fit all So what you would expect a country with 50 million people to do you would expect that the same procurement Guidelines and everything is in place for for a country of a hundred and seventy thousand people where The resources that are required the human resources are limited in the areas of Expertise that are required some of the standards are set so high That our local people do not qualify and that is an engagement We had a very we had very good meetings with the World Bank team that just some of the team is still here But the meetings that the Prime Minister myself and other ministers and permanent secretaries Attended they were very good meetings where we were able to engage them and say look here You cannot expect that a local contractor would have a turnover of $10 million a year in St. Lucia in order to qualify to get a project yet still these projects are given to International people who tender and bid on the project because our people do not qualify But as soon as they win the tender they would hand the project over to a local contractor to do But the credit goes to them to to that International film and it is to find that middle ground and in the last set of meetings with the World Bank It was very clear that they were much more willing to engage and to look at the dynamics of the countries because one of the things we said is Over the years these Institutions have operated how many of our consultants locally can qualify to even bid outside of St. Lucia or on the International stage and we have all of these people coming in to work in St. Lucia and then living after a while without building sufficient local capacity so we believe now we are at a stage where these projects that have been implemented Should involve more of local input and we are seeing some adjustments being made So I'm quite pleased with what I'm seeing coming from the World Bank And I'm hoping that we've CDB and the other institutions that we can see more of this happening Quite interesting and I suppose too much minister that if your responsibility of economic development you'll be liaising I'm sure with other ministries that on which you're hoping that the economy would hinge I would take it maybe agriculture and aspects about we just even saw in our new segment looking at the impact of tourism On the country, I'm sure areas of industry itself How has that synergy synergy been in terms of monitoring what has been happening within a tourism sector within agriculture and industry? because there's lots of Talk about that it's so much more than what you can do in terms of manufacturing and some of the local products that go with thing Mangoes different fruits vegetables and you think just recently we heard the minister of agriculture sitting at a high input bill And that sort of impact. I'm sure you must be having some close collaboration and discussion as to how These major areas can come together to assist in your overall achievement of this economic development So what the synergies are required, but they are there already it is for us to capitalize on it So The approach towards what we are doing. Let's use agriculture and tourism as an example We cannot export as much of what we produce outside of St. Lucia But if you have a million visitors coming to St. Lucia on a yearly basis And if these million people would just eat three meals for one day in St. Lucia Look at the impact that that can have on your agricultural sector and what you produce the challenge we've had is consistency in production and Quality in some instances because when when a visitor comes to St. Lucia and pays 500 US dollars to stay in a hotel you cannot tell them there's no eggs or there's no late use or they so The the consistency and that is why the Ministry of Agriculture Was able to identify if it's the five or seven crops that we can become self-sufficient Once we can do that then it's going to help us Okay, but the aspect of Industries and manufacturing these areas what sort of impact that they have in currently on the economy of St. Lucia because you know, it's heavily dependent on tourism and we know it's a fragile industry But how much more support can you get from other areas to have support tourism in instances? You know, there's fluctuations in terms of the sort of benefits that it would bring into the country How strong are these other sectors? In answer in your question We have a challenge with manufacturing number one our cost of electricity Is way too high To be able to be competitive So we have to choose where do we have the competitive advantage? Can we just go into general manufacturing or should we go into niche markets where we have a competitive? advantage In what we can produce so take handicraft as an example 90% of what we sell is found everywhere else You go to St. Vincent you go to Barbados all that is different is the need I Have said and when when I addressed the trade show between St. Lucia and Taiwan I Said that we should develop a place in St. Lucia That we call authentic St. Lucia Avenue Where everything that is in there ought to be made in St. Lucia? so We may not be able to produce televisions and fridges and radios But there are things we can do and and the prime minister has articulated it very well in scene The work we are doing in the castries market is not just repaying the market It is to position the market to become that showpiece Where everything sold in the market should be authentic St. Lucia So whether it be the areas of handicraft The the we know that Shwezel is famous for for our clean Products and things of that nature so that whatever is manufactured whether it be by windward and leeward brewery whether it be by The any of the other barons and you name it that what is going to happen when? Somebody enters the castries market and they buy anything They can know that this is a hundred percent St. Lucia product So so that's an area of manufacturing that people may not see as much But is actually very valuable We're gonna take our second break on our program today We'll be back with the honorable guy Joseph after these messages There are signs everywhere pay attention whether you're a male or female visit your health center to get screened It's a preliminary test to determine if you are exposed to the HIV virus and STI or tuberculosis Some people are HIV positive also have tuberculosis But there's hope tuberculosis can be cured and yes, you can live a full life with HIV Talk to your doctor be responsible Help stop the spread of TB HIV encourage everyone to get tested One of the eight university recognized rights of the consumer is the right to be heard This means that every consumer who is dissatisfied with a good or service has the right to lodge a complaint to the provider of that good or that service This should be the first point of lodging a complaint Ensure that the receipt as proof of the transaction is available Point of caution is that all of this is done to save water Wash the bathroom in a single way so that the water does not get wet Also, if the water does not get wet, the toilet bowl will get wet So you have to put a towel in the back The toilet bowl will get wet if the toilet bowl gets wet before the flush The toilet bowl that gets wet will get wet if the toilet bowl gets wet Safe water in a single way to wash the bathroom Wash the shower bath Wash the toilet bowl into a sink Wash the toilet bowl Wash all the toilet bowls Wash toilet bowl Wash the toilet bowl to clean all the toilet bowl Wash the toilet bowl to clean all the toilet bowl That's why we're trying to get rid of the hospital It might sound like fiction, but for 40 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, it is a reality. Innocent people enticed by the promise of a new life, then enslaved into forced labour or sex trafficking, human trafficking happens. In plain sight, know the signs, see it, report it. To report suspected cases of human trafficking, call the TIP Hawkelye at 847. With us, we have in focus today the Ministry responsible for Economic Development, Housing, Urban Renewal, Transport and Civil Aviation, also the Member of Parliament for Cassidy's Office, the Honourable Guy Joseph. Minister Joseph, your ministry as the Economic Development, one of the primary projects falling under your ministry has to do with the St. Jude's Hospital. It has been an issue, a project that has been very emotional one for the entire country, and rightfully so, healthcare is so important to us. We have now seen work in full swing down at the St. Jude's site. There has been some confusion as to exactly what the roll out, the final project is going to look like. A number of people are concerned about the demolition of certain buildings there on that site, and also the question of whether there is DCA approval for the project. Perhaps we can start with the idea of the demolition. Don't want to take words out of your mouth, but there was an indication for very early on when the technical audit report had been conducted, and there was indication then that there would have been, some of the buildings were not fully suitable for the purpose of a hospital, and that there would have been some adjustments made or demolition. At least that was part of the consideration before cabinet demolishing certain aspects of the buildings on that site there. So can you tell us at what point the government decided that one or two buildings had to go? From the time the report was done, it was clear that some of the buildings did not meet the requirements, the safety requirements to begin with. Fortunately I was down on the St. Jude site last evening, and I was handed the pictures of one of the buildings that they had started to knock down. And anybody, any media person can go down there and interview the people who did the demolition. By the time, it was explained to me by the time the excavator was rested against the building, everything. There were no starter bars for the blocks. They are the actual pictures to show that for what should have been the ring bin, a 2x4 was placed in between the concrete and the rafters were nailed straight into it. And that is for the dialysis, what was identified to be the dialysis building. And people tell you that's a new building. I got information from people who had worked at St. Jude's long before my time, that this building had been there for about 40 years, was part of the old building, and that they had added a flow without the requisite reinforcements. And when we went through the walkthrough of the building, you could have seen all of the cracks in all of the walls of the building. So from the very beginning it was clear whether you would have completed the existing structure and using it, or whether you would have built a new building that this building would have to go. The other building, the water was seeping through the foundation, and there's always a pool of water in there. There's a building that was completed by the Mexicans, I think, were the ones who had sponsored that part of the building. There was a big tree, yesterday I was told that the reason why the tree was not taken out is because permission was not granted. I will not call the institution because I cannot verify it as we speak, but permission was not granted to remove, and anybody can go there today, and you would see the size of the roots of the tree that is below the foundation of the building. Now we are talking about a hospital that was destroyed by fire. We are talking about meeting the basic requirements of safety. And if people want to talk about demolition, we can talk about demolition. The demolition we are doing everybody is aware of. What was done, the bulk of the money that was spent in St. Jude's by the previous government, was spent on demolition. And in the interview with Mr. Donnelly, who was the contractor, you can see there's a pile of rubble concrete that was broken down from the building in Viewfort, and the residents of Viewfort can take you to the site to see the area that was backfilled. Because every contractor who worked down there would, every worker would tell you they put a wall today, they would knock it down the day after, and that is where the bulk of the money went. So demolition has always been going on at St. Jude. What we are doing, and sometimes it's hard for people to face the reality. If you fix in something at your home, you may have started with the intention of changing free boards, but when you realize the extent of the damage, you may need to change the whole section of that. That is a standard thing in construction. We, it's not, it was not our intention to demolish anything down there if it had met the requirements. It clearly, and I am happy that the pictures were taken, that all the evidence is there to verify that the report given by the consultant who did the assessment was very clear that these buildings did not meet the basic requirements of safety. Now, can one access those pictures, the ministry, or post those pictures at all so that we can see for ourselves? I expect to get the pictures. I saw the print out of the pictures yesterday when I was down there and I expect that they would be made available. Once I get it, I will make it available. So is it one, two, three? How many buildings are really involved? Because that is something that, again, that the public is confused about. It's two of the small buildings. There's one of the buildings that was built on the foundation and under the foundation you could see was like a garbage dump. We left that little building. We dug all around it and we left the building there. Anybody can go there today. And you can see all of the debris that is under the foundation of that little building. It has not been knocked down. It is still there. It is still there for people to see. There must be some level of integrity in what we do in this country. And if everybody wants to see everything to believe that there is a problem, you really believe that we are struggling to get finances to run things in this country and that we are going to be knocking down things that are good just to make a point about politics. If other people operate that way, the government that I am a part of do not operate that way. We did. The reason why it took us so long to commence the work at St. Jude is because we were doing everything possible to try and salvage what was there. That is the reality. If we had made the decision from day one when we went in there by now, St. Jude would have reopened. The reality was a lot of money had been spent. A lot of resources had gone into this. A lot of time and effort. And to just say you are going to do away with this, you had to explore every possibility of making this thing work. If in the final analysis, given that we are building for the future, you are building for resilience because when we go and negotiate money out there, what are we telling the rest of the world? We want concessional funding because we want to build for resilience. We want to build for the issues or the impact of climate change. But at the same time, you are doing things that is totally opposite to what you are telling the rest of the world that you are doing. So we cannot be speaking from both sides of our mouth on the same matter. It's either we are building for resilience or we are not building for resilience. And the building that we are putting down there now is built for seismic activity, which is earthquake. It is being built for hurricane because it's a concrete roof that's going on there. It's not the regular galvanized roof that you are. And if you go and look at the roof of the buildings that is there, it's already sagging what was being built as the St. Jude. You could see that the roof is already caving in on some of the buildings. So the reality of where we are is that St. Jude is under construction. We are going to be using some of the existing buildings that are usable for things that do not pertain to keeping patients and your labs and these things, but for your laundry services, for your kitchen and other things, maybe offices and things of that nature. The parts of the buildings that can be used for that will be used, but the core hospital, the 96 beds, the operating theaters, the labs and all of the emergency area and all of this would be going into the new buildings that are being erected. And so the DCA approval, the government of St. Dushan, when you came into office, there was the point made that the project was ongoing without the approval of the DCA, the Federal Control Authority. And so now you can say to St. Dushan that the DCA approval isn't. So I want to be very clear about what I say to the people of St. Dushan on this matter. We have the DCA approval, okay? Now, the DCA approval was given in phases. So you have approval in principle and then as each phase of the project, the designs were completed, they are submitted to the DCA for approval. But for the foundational part of what we were doing, we had the approval. A presentation was made to the DCA, the drawings were submitted and the go-ahead was given. Now, people must stop playing these games because this same hospital, I challenge anybody in St. Dushan today to show me that the buildings that are there had any DCA approval. So if DCA approval becomes a prerequisite for the use of a building, then it means that nothing that was built at St. Jude should be usable because there's no DCA approval for the existing structures at St. Jude. So the persons who want to criticize the government. And I told them and I can repeat it anytime. If it means that I had to build a hospital without DCA approval and if I had to do it, I would do it. But that does not mean. You see, people don't like to hear the truth. So when you tell them, if I have to do that, I will do it. But it's not me. I am not the authority. I am not the one who can say, go ahead and do this or go ahead and do that. The DCA has its role to play in the process. So part of the reason why the work was not started sooner because we had to have the drawings. We had to submit it to the DCA. We had to get the go-ahead. So everybody is telling you, go ahead. Why are you not starting the hospital? Why are you not doing what you do it? But then you still don't have the approval. For us to have continued with the existing buildings, we had to go and do as-built drawings, go and draw everything that was there to scale and then to submit it to DCA for approval. That would take more time than it would take to design a new hospital. These are the realities, but the bright people who are out there who figure out they have a solution to everything that is there, they don't deal with the reality. They are not the ones who have to answer any questions so they can come out, they can post something on social media. I mean, I saw a post from the former prime minister. I'm taking a back. That they would say, it's a high-security area. It's a high-security area. When I was in opposition and I tried to visit St. Jude's site, at the time, Honorable Alan Shastney was the leader of the United Workers' Party. We were only allowed to reach by the gate. St. Jude had been open and we said it was open for everybody to go and visit and see what was there. Today, it's a construction site. You have heavy equipment. You have workers. They are safety requirements. So many people want to sabotage St. Jude project. You think I trust any and everybody? I'm not the one. We have not changed the security firm that was there. As far as I know, the security firm that was inherited is the same security firm that is on the St. Jude project. To my knowledge, I don't know that they have been changed. If they are changed, they are changed unknowingly to me. So the same security firms are there. So we have a responsibility as citizens of St. Lucia. That if we are going to say something, we say something that can be substantiated, that is true. Everybody wanted St. Jude to be done. We want St. Jude to be done. But we are following the proper guidelines and the proper procedures in seeing to it that this hospital is built and built properly. So coming off Facebook, Minister, just to the point of security, Lucia wanted to know if you could have spoken to the importance of security at the site, given the inherent potential for injury should individuals be allowed free access to the site. But you've just said that. Not many of the construction sites, people are not just allowed to wander on the site. I know that. And so there would be an instruction for the security of guards there not to allow individuals, just any member of the public to come on. I would, if there's an instruction, that instruction would not come from me. I'm not a... When I make arrangements to go on site, I don't just pick up and show up on site. I make a call. I say I will be coming down to the site. When I get there, they have to give me a hard hat. They have to give me a reflective vest to put on. And they would take me through a guided tour of the facility because you cannot just go and walk. You need to go and see the cranes that are there. One ton of steel is about the width of one of the columns. And that is 40 feet long. So look at the span of what you have to deal with. And how can a project site be? If anybody is injured on the project site, that becomes the liability of the contractor. And by extension the government. I want to ask all the persons who are so interested in visiting the site at St. Jude. What happened during the previous five years when St. Jude was incomplete and not being delivered? And some of the politicians themselves who want to visit St. Jude today and see what is happening, and they are welcome. I can tell you a high-profile politician have written to request a site visit. They wrote to my ministry. I called the persons in charge. And I said I want you to extend all of the courtesies that can be extended on a day that is suitable so that the visit can be accommodated. Is there a high-profile politician as a member of the opposition? Yes, a member of the opposition. Because we expect that members of the opposition ought to know what is happening. Because we don't operate like that this is our own personal private business. Building my home, I will decide who comes and who goes. But that's a hospital. And I think that they entitled to know what is happening. And I would be happy to accompany them on a tour and show them the quality of what is being done and point out to them what could not have been done by them, how well it is being done by this government. I would be happy to do that. I would be the happiest person to walk around with them and show them. Okay, so let's take in two other questions. We had Charles asking about the timeframe for St. Jude but also Jody asking when can we see renderings of what the finished hospital will look like and what are the estimated timelines for construction including when we can expect it to be open and ready to serve the public? People are in the business of giving dates. And I've said to everybody. And God knows we've had many dates for St. Jude. And by now people should know dates don't mean much. Especially in the context of what we do. But you know why? People want a date because they want to see. You said that that was going to happen by that date. My assurance to the people of St. Lucia is we have five years in office and we will deliver St. Jude before the end of our five years in office. That is my commitment to the people of St. Lucia. That St. Jude will be delivered. In terms of renderings and the drawings while we have the drawings for the buildings that we are putting up the linkages into the part of the existing structures that are to be used have not been completed because we are focused on the main area of construction where the main hospital is going to function. In due time the renderings will be available so that persons can see what the finished product is expected to look like. We've got to take a final break on the program. We'll be back with the Honorable Guy Joseph on InFocus. It's your number. Keep it. Mobile number portability is here. Now you can switch provider and still keep your mobile number. Fixed line portability is coming soon. Mobile number portability means true choice, true convenience, true value, and it's free. Here's how you do it. Go to the retail store or authorize dealer of the mobile service provider that you wish to switch to. Prepaid mobile customers. Bring your government-issued photo ID. 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We're reminding you that you can call us on 4682162. We're also on 93.5 FM. And we're allowing you some extra time today. We're going to be going until one o'clock as we have a number of matters we'd like to discuss. The Minister for Economic Development, Housing, Urban Renewal, Transport and Civil Aviation. Our producer has graciously consented to allow us to go the extra time. Well, Minister Joseph, you did speak about extensively on hospital and the situation regarding it right now. And you know that it's really an emotive. We deal with the emotions of solutions. Health care is very important. You outlined a number of reasons why we have gotten to this point and where we are at now. And resilience has been something that you really commented on in detail. Can you tell us a bit more on the real necessity and how important that is to ensure that these structures meet the sort of standards that we would need? So in terms of the resilience, it is we have to show the rest of the world what we are doing ourselves. So this is a project that the government went on its own to raise the necessary financing. In doing so, when we can show the other international institutions that we deal with, that as a government, we have taken on the responsibility to build for resilience, for climate change, so that when we go in to negotiate with them now and we say, okay, we need to build a new school building, the school building will no longer be priced. And we saw it with the World Bank and the Schwozell School as an example. You saw it with the Denver School. Because already these institutions are helping us in financing projects that meet the changing requirements of building codes today. If we as a country will shortchange ourselves by doing less than what they are doing, then our case is weak when we are going to make a case for the kind of expenditure we would want to do. So building the hospital, I mean, I am taken aback at the amount of steel that this building is using. And the size of the steel and the magnitude of the columns. And I am quite elated that the work is being done and executed by St. Lucian contractors. I mean, when the OECC came on site and they were involved in the process, they said they are quite pleased to see the magnitude of the work and the professionalism that is being done. The design of the project itself. While we are building a 96-bed facility today, because of the government's development plans for viewfort and what we expect will happen in viewfort in the years to come, we have built this with a foundation, with the capacity to be able to go another floor above the existing facility where you can add maybe another 50, 70 beds or so. So you can take it to the capacity that you can add services to what is being offered today. So the building is not just that we are building St. Jude with 96 beds today. But what would be required because the roof is going to be a flat slab. You can just build on top of it and you can have another floor added to the hospital for expansion in the future. And that is the type of thinking that is going into what is happening down there today. Because we expect the population in viewfort will grow. We expect more people as viewfort develops and has its own economic activity that more persons will remain in the south. So a lot of the people who are from the south coming up north every day to earn a living may be able to earn a living in their own part of the country and will be accessing more of the services down there. So that is the concept behind the design. Design is also modern in that in between the buildings there are green spaces left in there for sunlight to come in where you can have trees and you can have different things. Because the concept of healthcare today is not just the concrete structure but it's the environment that is conducive for healing to be therapeutic in and of itself in the environment that you are in. So the design for St. Jude has taken all of that into consideration where you may have flower gardens and trees and benches in between the buildings so that patients are not just confined to a room but those who can go out can go out and sit down get some of the fresh breeze and the sunshine because sunlight is very positive for health. Good vitamin D. We have, sorry Mr. Minister, we do have someone on Facebook wanting to know thank you so much Desmond for the question you want to know when the government will have a town hall meeting with the people of OJ where the hospital is located? I did not have that in the plan so I will not say that we had that but I think it's a good suggestion that we can organize a town hall meeting with all the key partners who are involved in the process so that is something that I would be happy to take on board and engage the people because it's in the immediate area and even the construction has an impact on because we are almost going within the next week we expect to be, they are already working with it but we expect to work on free shifts and the project, I must say that if you look at the number of Saint Lucians who are down there working on this project site today and this is a project site that practices the highest safety standards so you are tired coming on the site the type of shoes you wear you must have your hard hat, you must have your reflective vest all of these things are requirements not just for the people visiting but for the workers themselves so in the coming weeks I would be happy to see how we can engage the residents of the area the employment numbers are very good down there I think even with all the work that had been done at Saint Jude previously we have never seen that extent of economic activity within the south I mean when I went down there I saw about 7 excavators cranes, barcodes, forklifts I mean you name it concrete trucks, concrete plant everything and I know for a fact that a lot of the things that are happening down there they are not owned by the contractor doing the work but these are people different persons who engage I know there are about 7 subcontractors who have been engaged those doing the steel work all of the different activities I mean the number of people and I think 90% of the people working down there are from the south from everything that I have seen stretching from Souffre back to Miquod right so minister, just before this I know you have a lot of areas in your portfolio that you would like to cover but just before maybe my last comment on the hospital and the situation I would like to refer to the current location which is at the George-Odlam cinema initially it was supposed to be temporary and we've had descriptions of what temporary has actually become right now in terms of the plans can you tell us about any plans after probably the relocation has gone when moving to the new facility what's the plans for the current location and what can the sportsmen and women look forward to in terms of the rehabilitation of the stadium well there needs to be major rehabilitation in fact I spoke to the persons that are sportsmen, the people who are responsible for the stadium and one of the directors they told me we cannot wait for the hospital to be out of there so we can take charge of the stadium and begin to bring the stadium back to what its original intention was which is to be a sporting facility so I definitely know that the ministry of youth development and sports would have some focus as we have seen the sports program being ruled out with the mini stadium in Souffre with what's going to be happening in Miquud and the other areas also the stadium is an integral role plays an integral role in what the sports program of the country is going to be we have seen the sports academy being opened at the Grosile, what used to be the Grosile secondary school so with the heavy focus on sporting activities and what is happening the sooner that we can hand over the stadium back to the sports people in St. Lucia I think that's going to be a further boost for our sporting activities just one other question following Ryan's trend there on post initially when the revised plans for St. Jude included making it to a modern facility that would include a teaching hospital and to further enhance the idea of VA4 as a sort of medical school town if you will so is your government still keeping that idea to have St. Jude and be a sort of teaching hospital so we've had discussions with a number of schools medical schools that is to see what integration there could be between St. Jude being like a university hospital and capitalizing on the expertise of persons in various fields of medicine the general thinking as we speak still remains that the path of the buildings at St. Jude that will not be utilized by the hospital if we can attract a credible institution like a medical school to come and operate the medical school with them and have the integration with St. Jude that would be the ideal so that what would have happened with the buildings that they are not going to go to waste they are not going to become derelict buildings at any point in time but that they are going to be completed and used for things pertaining to medical services so take for example if you have classrooms there you have different things all of the doctors, the lecturers, the students themselves would be able to integrate with the operations of the hospital itself and that would be a means of boosting the economy of the hospital itself so the economy of the south is going to be very it's going to have a very positive impact on all of the activities in the south because given that you've had a number of medical schools patents being one of the longest established medical schools in close proximity to the area you see planning and execution and there must be synergies so I look at the US every day and you would see an empty area and the first thing you would see going there is a Walmart you would see a Walmart going and building a store there and when Walmart builds a store there then you'll just see a whole community developing so there are things that attract people to live in particular locations so it is how you plan and how you execute so the thinking for Viewfort is because you have so much good flat land in Viewfort Viewfort has been underperforming because the strategic decisions for developing Viewfort was never realized we've always heard that Viewfort was the new frontier for development but we never saw that happening today the government has placed a special emphasis on Viewfort and all aspects of development of Viewfort is taken into consideration and that's why we knew that we could not make we could not have a makeshift hospital in Viewfort you had to put a hospital that is really state of the art and meets the demands of the next 40 to 50 years because given our economy at what point we think we'll build a new hospital and the money we would spend to finish St. Jude the reports are there you know and these are not reports generated by me these are reports that was generated under the previous government that it would take us another 70 plus million dollars to finish St. Jude that is the existing structure that was there if we are going to spend 80, 90 or 100 million and have a brand new facility are we not better off meeting all of the standards of resilience for climate change I mean this is elementary basic common sense would tell you that's the better way to go all right once that facility is up we know that the government has been talking about being able to access healthcare and of course the prime minister has said that the national health insurance program would enable solution to be able to have that sort of access to healthcare but administratively running the hospital now that's the government prime responsibility so what is the plan going into once the hospital has been commissioned keeping it open, keeping it operating the cost attached to that St. Jude is a much better run facility than VH and I say that without fear of criticism I may be criticized but I'm sure I can substantiate what I'm saying there St. Jude is run by a board St. Jude is like a statutory corporation run by a board the government gives a subvention to St. Jude the systems, the recordings and what goes on in St. Jude St. Jude is a better model to use for the opening of OKEU than to transfer VH to OKEU because they have been following some of the basic guidelines of running a facility efficiently so we must move away from the idea that a building makes an institution a building does not make an institution it is where the institution is housed but it is what happens in there the services, the systems the procedures, the processes that are followed so I have every confidence that St. Jude when we move to the new facility at the new hospital will be matching OKEU any day, anywhere on the quality and the output of what we are going to get because I have a lot of confidence in the manner in which the systems at St. Jude run and that is complementary to the staff and to the workers down there that even in a stadium they can maintain the high standards that they have maintained in health care OK, we are trying to get a call online while we do that Minister thank you Nicholas for your question he wants to know if you have updates on the suffra and denny hospitals if that is within your knowledge now there is also a question as to the health centers that are currently under renovation I think those that are moving to the smart facilities I just want to take so those two are interrelated and then we have one from Shane thank you Shane so much from a transparency perspective can the government create a website and provide the public with updates regarding the hospital and in addition he is thinking that the media should be allowed monthly visits so that they can keep the public abreast with the progress happening there because when people do not have the information the tendencies for speculation OK, so let me try and answer the one put in to the denny hospital and it's really a denny poly clinic as we have it again we inherited a situation with designs completed went out to tender when I came in I requested a review of the denny situation because of World Bank procurement I hate to do this to you Mr. Minister but the individual has been trying for a while to get online I'm told now by the producer that we have the caller online thank you so much for calling what's your question, your comment hi caller are you there OK we seem to have a bit of interference why they sought that out you will indicate in the poly clinic so what I inherited we did the groundbreaking we went there and we were proceeding because the drawing got clearance from everybody to proceed within a month or two into the contract I was called to a meeting highlighting the number of problems and the consultant on the project who I inherited as the consultant I didn't choose I wasn't involved in the procurement or anything he said to me if you continue with this facility you will have a sensualy on your name in other words you are going to end up with a project that is worse than what happened at Senju now since it's in Buazhouli so he liken it to Senzhouli and I said what do you mean and when we went through this and we saw the problems that was there flood designs, all kinds of problems we had to go back to the drawing board and redesign the January poly clinic which has now been submitted to the World Bank for no objection so that the work can continue what we have found out is that because the building was so poorly designed it was the costing of the building was not matching what is actually required for the standards of a poly clinic today and so from the figures I'm hearing it may be about 30% higher than what the original project price was and I said to people I have a responsibility to put that information to the public so when people will come and say oh but the price change under you that they will understand what happened and what was the process generous enough to say I am willing to forego my contract I am not going to preside over a project that I know does not meet the basic standards and my question to the team that was there who signed off on this and the people who are the meeting tell me well I'm not the one who was there at the time there were some other persons so everybody is passing the buck as to who was responsible and signing off on this project has been suitable that is the challenge we've had with denry but I would expect if the no objections go through the well bank at the upcoming meeting that sometime very early in the new year we should be able to recommence work at the denry poly clinic I think I'm going to try for another call if you have another caller who is trying to get in go ahead please we still have some difficulty with the phone lines we apologize for that but with regard to the other question the sufre hospital we have identified the land we have finalized negotiations for the land where it's somewhere to the back of courts in sufre on that hillside there because we have to take into consideration the flooding problems we've had in the area where the hospital is presently located and a suitable location has been identified the processes for the land the designs have been worked on as we speak so once we have completed these processes then we should be able to move to the next phase on the issue of the health centers it is a well bank finance projects to make them smart health centers in that all of the services that have been offered can be properly tabulated and documented and there can be that synergy between the hospitals and the health centers because we've not been keeping good data in St. Lucia that's not one of our strong points to keep everything so that when you want the information it is readily available because the idea of the health centers is to reduce the burden on your major health facilities like the hospitals so if we can get our health centers functioning as effectively as they ought to be if we can have doctors station in these health centers more than once a week as we have them now then it can reduce the burden of the casualty or the emergency at the hospitals and reduce the burden of people having to travel so fast sometimes to get basic health care and also the question of keeping the media abreast with the construction face by face I don't know why and I'm not saying it's not a good idea I'm still trying to wrap my head around why do we have to tell people on a monthly basis what the status is and I'm not saying we should not because this is something that I'm being bombarded with and people are saying to me yes you need to be able we need to know what is happening I want to ask there are so many projects going on in St. Lucia do we have the same interest now is it because St. Jude has been a controversial project can we what would the media I can understand that the government the GIS NTN whoever it is would have a responsibility to be documenting what is happening I am not certain I'm being very clear this is not a matter that we have discussed internally to make a decision on it to say that the media cannot go out there to put it into a monthly schedule based on what is happening because as you move past a certain stage so now everybody is paying a lot of attention to what is happening because there is big activity once you enclose this building and you inside of it you lay in carpet, you put in electricals you put in plumbing and as I say about plumbing you know what we discovered at the St. Jude hospital which is not insulated is running together with the electrical lines that's a no-no in any by any stretch of the imagination you have a hot water line that is generating heat not insulated and next to it are electrical conduits and lines now we would never know that is what was happening until we started knocking down what was there and the question that confronts us is how many other places in the buildings have a similar situation and going back to the question that we were dealing with when you come to laying down your carpet you start painting the building so you mean you are going to bring people on a monthly basis to see if you put in tiles and if you are doing this I mean I am neither here nor there on it I am just saying that I have not understood the rationale for saying this project that is going on there the first phase of the project is supposed to end by February supposed to be a nine months project but we expect the contractor will deliver in four to five months and consider you have three ships or under clock ships exactly so if that is the case and all of that is do you want every time that because when you have a media talk of a place like that you have to slow down the activity that is taking place because if you go into a people touring and looking at this and looking at that and getting in because it means that your level of construction activity may have to slow down if people are working above if they are doing things they would have to stop so I am not going to give a commitment to people that it can happen at the time that people want but Saint Jude project goes to the media in any way there would be talks there would be updates the government has a responsibility to keep the public informed so in no way would we say I would be happy if every day they knew what was happening they would see how effective we are in delivery let's try for another call yes go ahead and call her hi good afternoon you are in focus with us we seem not to be able to get the audio I think we have some audio issues with the lines we want to apologize for that let's move on because you have other responsibilities the DVRB DVRB is one of them while we are Saint Jude and that is connected with resilience let's talk about the DVRB you indicated earlier that you are not very happy with the implementation of the projects that fall under the DVRB but we have been seeing some work being done we just reported earlier on on the dinner infant school and we gave kudos to that for the wonderful project that was what are some of the other aspects of DVRB that you are looking forward to the general concept the program was badly conceptualized from the beginning there are too many small projects in DVRB that requires the same procurement so imagine you are doing $100,000 project and you have to go through the same procurement requirements as if you are doing a $10 million project so the number of activities I can tell you that the last time I checked about 216 contracts had been issued on the DVRB and for those who say we don't tend the things as far as I know every single one of them went to tender so think of it how many projects does a government tend on a yearly basis and to have on the just DVRB that you have issued 116 contracts I think it may be during this financial year I don't want to be incorrect but I am just saying that the figures that I got was that every one of them goes through a tender process every tender is evaluated every report is prepared then it goes back to the same so when it comes in it is opened by the tender's board to let him to review to make sure you have to tally every single amount that is given down to the same to situate that your bottom line figure matches with the calculations or each of the items that are there you know how tedious a task that is to enter all of that info to do all of the necessaries and imagine you doing that for 40 50 projects then when that is a report has to be prepared on each one to say who should be what the recommendation is for the award then it goes back to the central tender's board to be issued when the tender's board gives the issue the person is called in to sign after they are called in to sign then you give them a commencement date and then they have to bring in the insurance and do all that we tied up DVRP with too many little projects and I always speak inclusive I inherited that but I say we because we are the government today we cannot change what was established and in our discussions with the World Bank it came through and they are of the same view if you want to do a little hundred thousand dollars project for your central government use these resources to do your major projects and free up the hand of the government to do the other smaller things that it needs to do but DVRP became the shopping car for every ministry who wanted an activity done so they heard there was money on the World Bank tourism has held this one that one you name it and some of the projects are less than ten thousand dollars you still have to go through the procurement process so that is part of the reason and you are talking about a PCU with about 12 or 15 staff having to handle all of that work within the given time have to prepare all the documents for tender all of the necessary then we are depending upon the engineers from infrastructure have their own workload to assist us so these are some of the challenges that we face in project implementation but that is my problem to solve that is why I am disappointed that we have not been able to do more because the public did not elect me to come and tell them what the problem is the problem elected us to do what needs to be done in St. Lucia but it has been a challenge so to employ somebody under this project we have to go through the world bank we have to advertise internationally people have to send in their resumes they have to apply you have to do the interviews it is the requirement and we have to go by it so this will always be a challenge to be able to implement projects of that nature if from the beginning you do not get it right and we did not get it right from the beginning but I have every confidence that by the middle of 2020 that we should have committed if not all most of the funds available to us on the DVRP but the DVRP it is a project that touches every aspect as you indicated sectorally but also for the benefit of the public DVRP disaster vulnerability reduction project which is what we are doing in terms of resilience so take for example what is happening in my constituency now quite a bit of the dreams and the river banks are being addressed to help control the flow of water we are not going to stop flooding but it should help reduce and better control the flow of water so that there is less impact of flooding from limited rainfall when you have major rainfall you would still expect a certain level of flooding but we are also helping quite a lot it would help in reducing the erosion of the river banks in some places they are up to the pillars of the houses in Odessa and so we are doing the bolder packing now which is going to save the people's houses in that community it may not stop the flooding entirely but it at least will save the damage that is being done to property and we have a set coming in Souffre we are doing a set in Mykoud and in Denry so all of the vulnerable areas that were identified are being addressed ancillary also is being addressed under that same program we've noticed in the last rain events we had Bexaw fed off very very well we can't see the scene for Kaldisak so perhaps you need to bring some of that miracle work in that region there we've not done a lot in Kaldisak primarily because there is the project to be financed by the Japanese and so you do under duplication of effort because there is already a full project designed by the Japanese for the raising of the height of the bridge in Kaldisak under route and to control the flow of water in that general area so you would find that less focus is on there because a project is already identified to deal with there now remaining moments I know that is very quick but there are some exciting things happening with the Department of Transport so we know that we are looking at full automation that is coming up very soon the license application process can be done online so you talk to us about the direction that you are going in now ok just before I answer your question you see I am wearing a bit of purple today because we have that road yes we have that road safety awareness it's road safety awareness month we are hoping that our people would be very cautious in many careless accidents in St. Louis I mean just not paying attention and it is so easy to be distracted but the volume of traffic on our roads is much more than it used to be there don't have any back roads or remote roads anymore everywhere people find a way to drive and to avoid as much traffic and it builds traffic so I am appealing to all let us drive much more responsibly than we are doing presently so that we can reduce the number of traffic accidents and the time factor not just the injury and the pain but you look at a minor fender bender on the highway and you are stuck in traffic for two hours you cannot go it affects productivity in every sense of the word not just for the persons in the accident but for the general public on the issue of what is happening we have inherited so many problems in transport when I left transport after we lost the elections in 2011 what we found was we started working on a system with the ATLAS system and the AS400 it is unfortunate that coming back five years later in government that everything remained the same not even a merger of the two systems was done and then the records of transport went into chaos because when you want to find out about a driver's license a registration you go to AS400 you want to find out about a vehicle you have to go in ATLAS system and it was a whole mix in this modern day and age of e-governance and the use of technology I think we should be launching the program tomorrow because we expect by the first week in January that persons would be able to apply for their driver's license online they would be able to pay for their driver's license online and we can even mail it to them if they are willing to pay the fees for it to be mailed for ours and Lucian's living in the countries outside in other parts of the world they don't need to come down to St. Lucia to get their license renewed then we would also be having like the fee retest and a number of activities so as we go along each phase of the project is going to roll out a different aspect of what is happening in licensing so that we would reduce the time that people have to wait on the line at the ministry and in the comfort of your own home and to set up centers in different communities for those people who may not be able to help themselves or the constituency councils and different places there can be a clock there where you can go in there and let them put in the information for you and get you to be able to apply for your requisite documents online thank you honorable minister unfortunately we cannot go into double overtime we are really happy that you are able to spend some of your really tight schedule with us today in focus we had the first minister responsible for economic development house in urban renewal we really touched too much on that although certain aspects of the discussion they look at urban renewal transport on civil aviation something I am sure that could be really tied into the economic development part so maybe sometime you might be able to focus on that in depth as a sole subject thank you Mr. Minister and to have made things clear on some matters that are very important to St. Lucien and I have really kept the attention of the St. Lucien population in general thanks Lisa once more for being Thank you for having me today on the program and we are once more saying thank you to the Honorable Guy Joseph the Minister for Economic Development Housing Urban Renewal Transport Civil Aviation and also the Parliamentary Representative of East. I'm Rana Bryan saying goodbye for now