 Mr. Deputy President, allow me to thank the Almighty for the strength and courage that He affords me to carry out my duties to my country. My sincere gratitude to my family and well-wishers for their continued support on this journey. I want to extend appreciation to the 2,041 people of Choiselle Saltibus who came out and cast a vote for me at the last general election. The Government of St. Lucia and I are here to serve all the people of St. Lucia. It's with a grateful heart that I thank the Prime Minister of St. Lucia, the Honourable Philip J.P., for the opportunity to serve in the capacity of Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education. Mr. Deputy President, I am elated to work with a Prime Minister who spends no time trying to distract. He consults and strategizes and uses our scarce resources wisely to ease the burden of poverty for the majority of St. Lucia. An economist, a professional, a man of integrity, a man of experience, a man who understands the plight of the common man, a man whose desire is to create opportunities for education and provide livelihoods for as many St. Lucia's as possible, a man who is intolerant of corruption, a man who delivers. If Philip J.P. says he will do it, he will deliver. If the resources are not available, he will tell you. If the current economic status doesn't allow him to keep his promise on the deduction, the tax relief for those who earn $4,000 or less, he tells us at this time it's not possible. But I am certain when the time comes, he will deliver. The Honourable Prime Minister has presented a budget with no new taxes on the back of St. Lucia. He has also done all his power to cushion the effects of the rising fuel prices in St. Lucia. As Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Education, I stand here to speak primarily on the issue of education. This government believes that education is a right and not a privilege, and a means of unlocking the full potential of every citizen. And it is in this spirit that the Government of St. Lucia has put the education of our children first. Mr. Deputy President, we all know the devastating effects of COVID on our education system. Loss of instruction, the psychological impact on our children that we do not know what the future holds for. This government wasted no time, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in attempting to relieve parents who are cis parents by providing education support at the beginning of the academic year. We have also seen that the government has paid CXC Mathematics and English A for all five students. Mr. President, I sit in education and e-learning initiatives, and we go to the e-books. Mr. Deputy President, I was taken aback. I was appalled. I was dumbfounded. And I listened to Senator Polius this morning. For a while, I was wondering whether this was the same education system that I worked with as a principal, as an education officer. Mr. Vice President, I heard of the expansion of the laptop program, and I'm still wondering whether I know what expansion means. If the senator speaks of expansion. What I know, and I was in the system, is that there was a pilot project in Form 3. Not all the secondary schools were involved. In fact, we don't pilot all schools. So it was some schools. There were myriad problems with that project. And I will tell you a few that I know, because I was there. There was a disconnect with the facts, okay? Apparently, the senator may have got her information wrongly. Because there were problems with the alignment of the curriculum with those e-books. They were cheap, substandard e-books. And just opposite my office, there's a room full of e-books. To this day, the technicians cannot fix them. And this is the truth, the whole truth. We had to pay millions of dollars in insurance that the Ministry of Education can ill afford for the e-books. Let me inform the senator that we have procured better quality devices. That are superior to the e-books. How could an e-book be better than a laptop? When students can download the e-book reader from a laptop. All we have to do is to teach our students the skills to maximize on the use of the laptops. This is what we have to do. Mr. Deputy President, to date we have distributed 8,000 loan books. Between September and now, the government has been able to secure an additional 11,100 devices. The first set of 3,000 devices have been received and distributed to needy students throughout grades one to five at the primary schools. A second batch of 3,800 Chromebooks have been received and are being configured to deliver within the next three to four weeks to secondary school students and teachers across the island. The third batch of 2,200 Chromebooks and 2,100 tablets are expected to be on island soon and ready for delivery early in the future. Mr. Deputy President, we shall ensure that every secondary school student receives a laptop. And that is from form one, from five, not some of the students, but all of the students. Approximately 5,000 additional primary school students are equipped with devices. The Department of Education will continue investing in devices to be distributed to students and teachers within the education system. And as the senator said this morning, said this morning, that a laptop is no longer a luxury. A laptop is a necessity for every student. It's just as if you are a pastor, you always need a Bible. The Department will continue to be resolved in its quest to strengthen the e-education ecosystem. Greater emphasis will be placed on teacher training and improving connectivity. We shall continue to solicit the support of our development partners as we seek to bridge this digital divide. Mr. Deputy President, ICT in Education and eLearning initiatives. Smart classrooms. The Republic of China, Taiwan has supported our smart classroom drive in a big way. They have provided equipment, including interacting televisions and recording equipment to over 30 primary schools throughout the island. Mr. Deputy President, we shall continue to collaborate with our partners to expand the program to eventually provide smart classrooms in every school. Mr. Deputy President, we are a government that plan and we execute. I've been hearing start from the budget debate that we started this and we started that. It appears that it is a pipeline that is choked, so you start and nothing goes through. So the Sendocia Labour Party will execute because we get things done. Mr. Deputy President, the government continues to make an immense investment in technology. There has been an issue with servicing and repair of devices throughout the island, throughout the schools. The Department of Education will continue with the employment of IT technicians resident at all eight district offices to provide the necessary technical support to the schools and maintain the devices procured so that devices will no longer have to be sent to the IT department at the Ministry of Education for repairs. In fact, we need the room that is there empty because there are too many devices there. Mr. Deputy President, over the past year, two major projects have been undertaken in the education system. The Education Quality Improvement Project, EQUIP, and the Human Capital Resilience Project, HCRP. Under the EQUIP project, during the 2022-23 financial year, EQUIP will focus on further infrastructure enhancement of the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, which will be undertaken with an allocation of $3,500,000, a gender-sensitive policy and strategy for prevention and reduction of alcohol and drug abuse among primary schools, primary school children, and assessment of a secondary school to determine program and infrastructure needs to facilitate delivery of an alternative curriculum. The development of a special education needs policy, which aims to prepare a gender-sensitive policy and strategy for the Government of St. Lucia, is the best option for educating children with special education needs in the least restrictive environment. We know that our special needs children have not been treated fairly, and we need to recognize them as St. Lucia's who have rights and privileges. We need to cater for them, and the St. Lucia Labour Party will do that. The Education Act as well will be reviewed, in fact, as we speak, the review is ongoing. The Human Capital Resilience Project, one of the major TVED projects currently unfolding is the Human Capital Resilience Project. This $20 million project equally focuses on TVED and social protection and its associated policies within the Ministry of Equity. The upcoming year will focus on streamlining programs and training areas and undertake the training of at least 1,200 persons in enhanced TVED qualifications. We aim to develop citizens with employable skills, such as masons, carpenters, entrepreneurs, etc., because TVED is an area of priority for this Government. We want people to be able to be self-employed, to be able to be employable, to be able to employ other people, so that the Government alone doesn't have to provide employment for everybody. During this financial year, the Division of Education will work alongside the Department of Economic Development through the 11th EDF to commission two workforce development centres, one physical and the other virtual. The focus of these centres is to ensure effective geographical distribution of TVED learning. Mr. Deputy President, for too long, young people in the South have been clamouring for a centre to be placed in the southern part of the island to ease the burden of travel to castries. Mr. Deputy President, plans are well underway to facilitate the physical WDC in the south of the island by October of this year. Mr. Deputy President, CPEA, Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment, we all know that the Common Entrance Examination was the examination used to select students, not select secondary schools for primary school students to enter secondary school. For a long time, students had to write a one-day exam to determine what secondary school they entered, whether it was their first choice, their second choice, their third choice. Mr. Deputy President, an analysis of countries writing the CSEC exam revealed that countries who undertake the CPEA programme perform significantly better at the CSEC exam, the CPEA, sorry. So we are seeing that when the CPEA is taken, that it has an effect on learning at secondary schools, because this exam is an authentic assessment that focuses on skill acquisition in the literacies. So it's not just teaching to the test. Some children have fear of examination, sometimes a child is sick on the day of examination and cannot be placed in the school of their choice even if that child was a very intelligent student. Struggling is an assessment, yes. Struggling students get the opportunity for greater success, because the assessment is 40% school-based and 60% written exam. The internal part of the school-based constitutes projects, book reports, writing portfolios, teacher-made tests, pupil-made tests, and can do skills. So students who have a skill can perform a skill as part of their assessment. A student may be able to be a dancer or an artist or what have you. All those skills are included in the assessment. And the external final component is a final examination, and this examination will be held in St. Lucia for the first time in the next week. So our students will be writing the CPA, the second component, so they would have done the school-based assessment, and they would be carrying with them to the final exam marks from the school-based assessment. Mr. Deputy Speaker, we need to, as you can see, it is skill-based, and this is the way that this government wants to move the education system, that at primary schools a curriculum review should reflect a skill-oriented as opposed to an examination-driven curriculum. Presently, we have an exam-driven curriculum, and this has to be something of the past because the job market now, the emerging jobs demand that students have skills and not necessarily content. Content is readily available, but we need the skills to be able to use the knowledge that is all around. Sometimes people are afraid of giving their children a laptop because they will be exposed to so much content. However, you cannot prevent students from being exposed to content. What we have to do is to prepare them, to give them the skills so that they can know how to deal with the content that they will encounter. Mr. Deputy President, we also embark on a language education policy to fully integrate the Creole language into the school curriculum. The funds have been secured from UNESCO to plan and implement the application of the St. Lucia National Language Policy. So, Creole, we call Creole more in St. Lucia, it is the Gajno, it is the Gajpepla, with Union Policy Nes, who introduced Creole to the school. You can see that I have learned to understand the language in school to be more effective because I do not want to talk about the language, I want to teach my mother how to speak the language. We do not want to waste time with the language we have when we move to the school. We are also including St. Lucian and Caribbean history in the school curriculum to know more about us, who we are, so that we can identify with the things that are St. Lucian, the things that are Caribbean, so we no longer want to be British products or Canadian products. Mr. Deputy President, early childhood education, this is a priority for the St. Lucian Labour Party government. The government wants to ensure that all children receive a sound foundation in order to enjoy school and perform at the best. Quality early childhood education is therefore a priority. We are committed to working with both private and government operated early childhood centres to ascertain that our children get the best start to formal education. Mr. Deputy President, we wasted no time in commissioning three early childhood centres in February and the fourth was rehabilitated and recommissioned. We have allocated half a million dollars to assist the early childhood sector. I know today they are very happy that I have mentioned their names because they have been telling me that when we speak of education, we speak of infant primary and we forget the early childhood sector, which is the foundation for education anyway in the world. And so I want to applaud all the workers of early childhood, all the instructors, the owners of centres. I want to thank you for the brilliant job that you have been doing to ensure that our children are prepared for secondary school and not just for secondary school, but our children are prepared for life. Mr. Deputy President, special education. In an effort to provide a more realistic and appropriate option for special needs students, the Ministry of Education has initiated a post primary alternative pathway in collaboration with K. This initiative will consist of a two-year pre-vocational programme to be followed by two years of the K programme and is expected to commence in the upcoming school year. Mr. Deputy President, for too long our children of special needs have been closed inside. Some of them don't go to school and some believe that they are second-class citizens, but they have a place in society and we have so many examples of special needs students who have gone on to do very well in society. So we have to encourage them. We have to give them the resources. We have to give them proper education so that they can be independent learners and independent citizens. Mr. Deputy President, through the EQUIP project, the special education department has benefited from training in the use of technology and instruction. New devices and equipment to modernize the sector. So normally when we think of laptops, etc., we think of the primary school, but our special education students, we are placing special emphasis to ensure that they enjoy the same quality of education that other students in the mainstream are enjoying. Mr. Deputy President, I move to school security. We are all cognizant of the major security threats that our schools face during and beyond normal school hours. Thus school security remains a priority for the Ministry of Education, especially more so now with the increased crime rate, the breakings of schools. This year, security systems which include CCTVs and alarm systems were installed at seven schools across the island. This coming year, the Ministry of Education will continue to seek opportunities to mobilize more resources in pursuing this agenda along with improvements to school infrastructure and fencing. Additional training by the Royal St. Lucia Police Force to security officers will be pursued as financing becomes available. Let me hasten to say that recently we have seen the incidents of fights in schools, the use of obscenities on school compounds of students with school uniforms. Let me hasten to say that we at the Department of Education have zero tolerance for students who engage in fighting, encourage fighting and record fights and obscenities in the school uniform and on the school ground. The videos get to us at the Ministry of Education and it is very, very, very disappointing that our children would engage in such activities. I know before students would discourage fights but now it seems our students are instigating fights and are recording the fights for their own enjoyment. This is lamentable and the Ministry of Education will spare no effort in ensuring that this is put to a stop. Mr. Deputy President, school safety, we continue to grapple with the problem of mould infestation in schools and as I speak some of our schools are affected with mould. I remember as an education officer I had to intervene on several occasions. I want to all aid affairs of school principals and teachers that the Ministry of Education will spare no effort in ensuring that the school buildings are safe for all students, teachers and staff. Mr. Deputy President, this government is serious about achieving a one university graduate per household. This was a campaign promise and we know that we cannot do it in one academic year. Very promising dialogue has commenced with universities and colleges within the US and Canada as well as traditional and non-traditional agencies and institutions in an effort to secure tertiary educational opportunities for our young people. Mr. Deputy President, tax relief will be provided to business places that assist employees pursuing education courses and we shall continue to improve online learning platforms particularly for tertiary education. We shall work with the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in the expansion that's what somebody didn't want to hear. We shall work with the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in the expansion of its degree programs and to consider the feasibility of converting Sir Arthur Lewis Community College to a full fledged university. Mr. Deputy Speaker, the former government couldn't do it in six years but they expect this government to do it in nine months. Mr. Deputy President, full renovation works for 2022-2023 financial year. This year's capital budget of three million will facilitate the rehabilitation of schools, libraries and early childhood development centers and innovation and career development centers. Most of the funding will go towards electrical and instructional works as we seek to upgrade the systems within our schools and other plans. Vocal secondary, which suffered a major loss, is also expected to receive a new replacement block in the new fiscal year. Mr. Deputy President, lifelong learning opportunities. We shall continue to make stride in collaborating with many social agencies to provide employability opportunities to the marginalized. 25 persons from the public assistance program pursued courses in basic literacy and numeracy to CSEC, math and English. Mr. Deputy President, sustainable development. We would appreciate that climate change is real. And our government will respond as quickly as we can. As a small island developing state, we need to ensure that we build our resilience as we adapt to climate change. Government has received EC 17 million dollars to be used for this purpose. As we collaborate with various entities, we are already seeing the roll out of sustainable livelihood initiatives, specifically targeting women who have lost their income due to climate change. Mr. Deputy President, the groundwork has been laid for training of 80 agro processors who will use innovative resources to generate economic activity. Earlier on, I heard a call for agro processing plans. I'm wondering whether the former government was asleep because they did not. They had all the time in the world. As I said before, they are starters. They are not finishers. We have to start and finish. If you don't have a finish, you don't have a product. Mr. Deputy President, we have now received pledges for support at about US 4 million to support our climate change adaptation efforts. World Bank has approved US 21.9 million for exploration of geothermal energy, part of our renewable energy efforts. Street lighting replacement project. The CDP Street lighting project loan which was cancelled by the UW government is now reinstated and will replace high energy sodium lights with 25,000 LED lights to reduce our energy consumption island-wide. We are using climate smart initiatives. Mr. Deputy Speaker, now we give concession for electric cars, etc. We are eliminating the reliance on plastic. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Mr. Deputy President, as I conclude this presentation, allow me to thank the staff of the Ministry of Education for their support and hard work. Let me thank the National Principles Association and the St. Lucia Teachers Union for their patience and collaboration during the trying times of the COVID pandemic. We are still grappling with new initiatives and how we adapt so that we don't let our children stay home so that there is continuity in the education system. Let me thank the people of Choselle for their continued support and understanding. Let me assure them that in my capacity as Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education I will continue to agitate on their behalf and to ensure that they receive what they deserve. We are not just planners and starters. We plan and execute. We implement. We deliver to the people of St. Lucia. Let me allay the fears of the people of Choselle Salty Bus that if they have, sorry, that I will represent them in Cabinet. Their voices will be heard in Cabinet as I represent them there. Let me in advance wish all the mothers of Choselle Salty Bus and of St. Lucia on the whole a happy Mother's Day in advance. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy President. Mr. Deputy President, I rise to make my contribution to the 2022-2023 appropriation bill as presented by the Leader of Government Business. A bill I will describe as the budget mati. And Mr. President, it is my objective this afternoon to de-mati this budget and expose all the half-truths, the mis-truths, and the misleading statements in this bill. Mr. President, in debunking this bill, I am reliably supported with facts in a document which was not produced by the Opposition United Workers Party. And Mr. President, I speak of this little document, the 2021 Economic and Social Review. Already a document of the House, Mr. President. Mr. President, the report of the 2021 Economic and Social Review vindicates the last UWP-led administration and demand of the members opposite to examine the consciences. An examination, Mr. Deputy President, of conscience for the lies, propaganda, and deliberate duping by the St. Lucia Labour Party during the last administration's tenure to fool them to get into power. Mr. President, in December 2019, the world faced the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created a health and economic fallout to the entire globe. And Mr. President, we all know of the impact of this pandemic on our lives and our country. Mr. President, with the tourism industry being our main economic driver, with the first travelling restrictions and lockdowns all around the globe, our economy suffered drastically in 2020. Mr. President, the former administration, which I was a part of, managed this country with fiscal wisdom in an unprecedented time and protracted our country on a path of recovery, resilience, and growth, because we had the future of this country in mind post-COVID. Mr. President, the Economic and Social Review on page 11 and in the Prime Minister's own admittance on page 9 in his budget address stated that St. Lucia recorded 12.2 percent economic growth in 2021 after a contraction of 24 percent in 2020. Mr. President, only Guyana was ahead of us, with 19.9 percent in the entire curriculum. Mr. President, this only means that our fiscal policies and prudent financial management allowed us to weather the storm and placed us on a path of upward trajectory. Mr. President, in addition, the Economic and Social Review reveals that due to the former administration's judicious response to the pandemic, St. Lucia's revenue increased by almost $100 million in 2021 over 2020. But Mr. President, all of these gains didn't happen by accident. These positive results were experienced due to strategic and people-centric interventions to combat the impact of COVID-19 on our economy and its citizens. Didn't happen by accident. Mr. President, as I alluded earlier, that the Economic and Social Review document is not a UWP document, but a document prepared by the Research and Policy Unit of the Ministry of Finance, an independent document. Mr. Deputy President, on page 11 of the Economic and Social Review, it is clearly noted that the resurgence of economic activity was due to a strong return of tourism, which the opposition then opposed, and the implementation of major capital construction projects by the last administration, which was also opposed. And if we go to the Economic and Social Review, Mr. President, on page 11, and I quote, the partial resurgence of economic activity was buoyed by strong tourism and construction activity in the review period with positive spillover effects on other sectors that were hit by the pandemic, such as retail and wholesale, trade, manufacturing, and transport. Mr. President, earlier I noted that the members opposite must examine themselves because guiltiness rests on the conscience. Mr. President, let me remind you on this honorable house of the behavior of the then opposition. The opposition, Mr. President, they will be humanly against reopening of St. Lucia's borders to tourism. Humanly opposed. Close the borders. They said only the former prime minister and government believes that tourism will ever rebound. A madman to think that tourism will rebound. They said it was the front door and not the back door that was bringing in COVID. Remember that? When we unfortunately, when we unfortunately experience COVID-19 deaths, Mr. President, they said the former prime minister had blood on his hands. They created an uproar, Mr. President, when the government said that we must balance lives and livelihoods. Uproar? Today, Mr. President, they are at the driving wheel and they had to eat. They vomited. They had to eat. They vomited. Coming into office on July 26, 2021. What did we see and hear from them coming into office, Mr. President? The borders are yet to be closed. Close the borders because it is a front door that is bringing the COVID, not the back door. The front door is still closed. The situation has changed. Mr. President, although the cases quadruple under their watch, the borders remain open. It remained open and the situation changed. Okay, your situation changed, not the situation. The minister of tourism boasts of high numbers, although they said tourism would never return. Something they opposed, but they are growing with the numbers. The work of the UWP administration led by the best minister of tourism we ever had, Senator Fede. That is the work. Mr. Speaker, they said about we have a state of two St. Lucia's. We saw two St. Lucia's with tourists all over the place while the citizens were in so-called confinement. So-called confinement. State of two St. Lucia's when UWP was in office, but when they came July, tourists all over the place, all over. Since coming into office, Mr. Speaker, the favorite words became lives and livelihoods. Something they opposed, you know, but now it is balancing lives and livelihoods. The hypocrisy of the Labour Party, Mr. Speaker. And you have to expose them. You have to expose them. Mr. President, in one and a half year of managing COVID-19, a pandemic, no one succumbing, no one had a manual on how to deal with a pandemic. Approximately 85 deaths and 5,000 cases was recorded under the United Workers Party. Approximately 85 deaths and 5,000 cases. In the five months under the management, we had almost 400 deaths and over 20,000 cases. Tell me, what is it that you all have on your hands today? The UWP and former Prime Minister had blood on his hands with 88 deaths, about 5,000 cases. You all have almost 400 deaths, over 20,000 cases. What it is that you all have on your hands today? Mr. President, tell the people of St. Lucia. Mr. President, did they believe changing the name of the Command Center would be the antidote to the problem? The cosmetic change of Command Center to Command Management Center? That was the antidote. Mr. President, it became even more appalling when the Prime Minister who had the portfolio of tourism admitted that he never knew the economic impact of tourism on our economy. And this, Mr. President, should give us a testament of where we are heading to as a country. Mr. President, in addition to tourism, the construction sector was the other main attributing factor towards the attainment of 12.2% economic growth. This was achieved due to visionary leadership by the former administration's investment in major capital projects. And Mr. President, the former government recorded the highest over the past 10 years of investment in our public infrastructure, which accounted for 84.6% of public works. Mr. President, this yielded a 20% increase of which the construction sector on its own contributed 4.9% of GDP in 2021. And it is all right here in the economic and social reform. Come into that. Mr. President, these decisions will heavily criticize by the dinner position. With the favorite line, people don't eat roads. Remember that? People don't eat roads. But again, Mr. President, we saw another example where they had to eat the vomit. We saw it, Mr. President. I could not believe what I was hearing on March 10th, 2022, where the same culprits at the commencement ceremony of the Verna-Wienersling Road said, and I quote, and I quote, Mr. President, that roads have an impact on the lives and livelihoods of residents, the shoes on the other side of the foot, that roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses, that road links farmers to their markets, workers to their jobs, students to their schools, and the sick to the hospital. Can you believe that? People don't eat roads in a position, but overnight in government, roads are the best way right now. Hypocrisy, double standard, speaking out of convenience, Mr. President. Mr. President, with the fallout of COVID-19 and the drop in government's revenue collection, the former administration had to devise ways to resuscitate the economy and stimulate economic activities for the sustainability of our citizens, especially the displacement of jobs caused by COVID. Mr. President, can you imagine what would have happened had we taken the advice from the members of the opposite? Can you imagine what would have happened today in St. Lucia? The economic turmoil would have been. Mr. President, how much better off would we have been today if the government did not maliciously stop this construction first? How much better off would we have been today? How much more, Mr. President, how much more percentage points of economic growth we would have recorded if the projects would not stop? How much more? How much reduction in unemployment would we have recorded today? And I want to correct Senator Aziz that the highest employment rate ever was 24.1% in 2015, not 21.9%. It's in the economic and social review, page 121. Pre-COVID in 2019, unemployment was 16.8% from 24.1%. How much more revenue, Mr. President? The country would have raised today through the spill overs to wholesale trade, manufacturing, transport, to name a few. How did not stop the projects? But no, Mr. President, it's all about the threat and trademark of an SLP government of revenge, vindictiveness, and the never-ceasing victimization. That is the politics of the Labour Party, Mr. President. But, Mr. President, time is always the judge, and this economic and social review 2021 has judged the former government and gave us a passing grade which they cannot refute today. They cannot refute it. Mr. President, there is no denial that the policies put in place was indeed genius and has placed this country on a positive path which they now enjoy. But, Mr. President, once again, an SLP government received a country on a strong financial foundation after a contraction of 20%. Let us see if they will return this country to years of economic depression as the track record shows when they are managing the country's affairs. Let us see, Mr. President. Mr. President, you can fool some of the people sometimes, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. It's no longer about jingles or sweet talk or promises, Mr. President. Now it's about results. It's about results. It's about how do you impact person's lives and livelihoods. Mr. President, let us look at some of the other contents of the 2022-2023 budget money. Mr. President, it is clear to me that this administration has taken an approach of flattery language to fool the masses once more. They presented a policy address with no clear and strategic direction. A presentation, Mr. President, which lacked compassion to bring immediate relief to the people and to cushion the present inflation crisis. A budget where expected provisions of the government is made to look like charitable efforts or favors. A budget of continued policies, continued policies from an administration that was heavily rebuked for the exact policies they are replicating. No new vision, no renewed hope, Mr. President. Mr. President, the then Prime Minister made a broad statement in the first paragraph as it relates to COVID-related borrowings, but he failed to give a detailed breakdown of where the monies were borrowed from, what were the terms under which it was borrowed, and what it was used for. And that's page 12 of the appropriation bill, the budget address. Mr. President, these were the same persons asking to give the people the money when revenue had dropped by 60% due to COVID. When they knew very well that those monies were borrowed for budgetary support. What he failed to acknowledge is that the former government borrowed for budgetary purposes on the concessionary rates offered to small island developing states like ours to mitigate against the constraints caused by COVID. This financing, Mr. President, ensured that we were able to keep our obligations to our civil servants and our financial institutions, salaries and debts. And I go now, Mr. President, to page 12, and it stays there at the bottom. Mr. Speaker, the following is a snapshot of the government's poor financial state, which we found upon coming to office. And I want to look at payments due to local suppliers stood at 154 million. We always said, Mr. President, when we were in government, that the priority at the time was to meet the obligations of debt and salaries. And therefore, local suppliers who were owed, we had to hold back on those payments to meet those two priority obligations. But I'm very happy that the estimates, the economic and social review have shown the growth, have shown the increase in revenue, and it is for this government today, you have the fiscal space now to bring down the payables. Bring it down, because you have raised over 100 million from 2020 in the height of the pandemic to pay down on the payables. Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, I don't know if they have their unpaid land acquisitions of 60 million. Mr. President, far from the truth, half truth, you say we have unpaid land acquisitions of $60 million as if United Rookers Party acquired lands of $60 million in five years. Far. Mr. President, when we demitted office, there was almost $90 million worth of outstanding land acquisition payments. In the five years of the United Rookers Party, we acquired approximately between $25 and $40 million worth of lands. In the ballpark figure of the almost $90 million of outstanding acquisition, you have lands which were acquired, Mr. President, since the 1970s. 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, which have not been paid. And once that declarable land has been declared, a 6% interest rate is added to it from the day of declaration. And that is what causes the cost of land acquisition to rise every year. So be transparent, tell the whole truth, and do not come and make people believe that United Rookers Party acquired almost $60 million worth of lands. Mr. President, the CDP debt of $4.18 million ungrowing, once again, the Prime Minister attempted to mislead the public in sighting of this debt, Mr. Speaker. Mr. President, the Prime Minister knows better, and this ought not to be classified as a debt, since it is a cash flow issue and relates simply to the different financial cycles of St. Lucia and the Republic of China, Taiwan. Republic of China, Taiwan, the financial year is January to December. St. Lucia is April to March. And the money comes at different times of the year from the CDP program. We have always utilized funds and executed works on the this source based on the process of approval of the CDP allocation within our overall budget approval process, and he knows that. But he's forgetting that in 2016, they took $10 million of CDP debt from the SLDB, and we had to pay for it when we came into government. He's forgetting that. Rolling of bonds and Treasury bills is footing of the appropriation bill, Mr. President. The Prime Minister appeared to make the rolling over bonds and Treasury bills as an issue in this budget. Yeah, the budget statement, the budget address. Mr. President, it was shocking for someone that has been a member of Cabinet for so long. He should know that this is nothing new, and this is a financing mechanism of government for a prolonged period. We roll over Treasury bills and bonds all the time. It didn't happen the last five years. It didn't happen five years before that. It has been happening for a long time, rolling over the bills and bonds. Just want to remind members that wrapping on the desk while other members are speaking impedes the ability to record properly. So just thank you. We moved to the youth economy, Mr. Deputy President, pages 14 and 15 of the statement. We, the members of this side, Mr. President, will forever support any initiative to force the youth development initiative. There is an allocation of about $10 million towards the youth economy, Mr. President, and we note $2.6 million for consultancy. If you are not talking about accountability transparency, who is going to be the consultant? Who are the consultants? Is it going to be consultancy for the boys, for the girls, the inner circles? Only $600,000 for training. I think either Senator Aziz or yourself spoke about the training. How can $600,000 be sufficient for training for young people who are just starting businesses? This should have been quadrupled or tripled, Mr. President. $789,000 for salaries. Creating a bureaucratic statutory organization. Salaries for financial year, $789,000 out of the $10 million. How many people are going to be employed? Who are those persons? Are they going to be the young people? Who are those persons, Mr. President? $5.2 million for grants and contributions. Never specified how much of the $5.2 million is going to be going towards grants and how much is going to be going towards loans. Be transparent. Be transparent. Mr. President, we can talk about the foundation. Mr. President, with so much touting by this government for youth economy, it baffles me to see so much money is going towards consultancy. Like I just said, youth economy appears to be a phrase by this government, and they are now looking into what it is they can propose to the young people of Saint Lucia. But to us on this side of the house, youth economy is practical, not a phrase. Mr. President, why couldn't this administration build on the many ongoing efforts such as making money available through the Youth Enterprises Equity Fund, yes, at SLDB, which was conceptualized to bring young enterprise people within the mainstream of economic and social development in Saint Lucia? Presently, this facility can invest up to a maximum of $50,000. Why not put the money there to increase this threshold? Mr. President, rather than this administration expense so much money on consultancy, why don't they make further concessions to the Fiscal Incentives Act to foster youth investments in the four areas of incentivized by the previous government under the Ministry of Commerce, which were one, creative industries, where we had entertainment, motion picture and videotape production, and distribution services, sporting and other recreational services. Number two, we had professional services, accounting services, management consulting services, photographic services, architectural services, engineering, etc. Number three, we had spa and wellness, beauty and spa, physiotherapies and services provided by midwives and paramedical personnel. And four, ICT, telecommunication services, online information or data processing, including transaction processing. Why not expand it to other sectors? These enacted areas, Mr. President, qualify for exemption from customs duties and excise tax on plant, equipment, machinery, spare parts, raw materials or components. See, Mr. President, the former administration always knew how critical our youth are to the development of this country and implemented several initiatives to foster their advancement. Mr. President, as I read through the budget address on the infrastructure development, I can only dub the paragraphs there as hypocrisy. And I go to page 16. Same people who criticize infrastructure, you know, in opposition. Page 16, infrastructure development, infrastructure 2040. Mr. Speaker, the development of St. Lucia's infrastructure has been identified as a critical component of the overall strategy for improving St. Lucia's economic, social and environmental performance. That will take you nine months to know that. But in opposition, people don't need roads. Infrastructure was not important. The development and upgrading of St. Lucia's infrastructure in roads, air and seaports, water supply, sanitation, energy generation and telecommunications are critical to raising productivity and leaving standards. So what are we doing? What are we doing? Senator, you have 15 minutes to conclude your presentation. The Ministry of Infrastructure is pursuing the development of an infrastructure plan for 2040. It is so critical for standard of living, for livelihoods, but the plan is for 2040. It's not immediate, you know. This plan is to be guided by reports and documents recently completed for the government of St. Lucia on various aspects of infrastructure development. This exercise is expected to identify gaps in infrastructure development. Procracy. Mr. President, in the 2019-2020 budget address, the former government identified infrastructure as one of the six pillars of development in our mid-term strategy. Same thing though. Same thing. Truth to be told, Mr. President, the same projects they protested against and the same investments they criticized has now become the eye candy. Eye candy. Look at the budget, Mr. President. All the projects identified in the budget ongoing initiatives of the former administration. And nothing new. All the projects. Some of which Millennium Highway, Millennium Highway, the Grosjele Highway, Rodney Bay Highway, the HIO Development Project, which they criticized, the view for water supply, the John Compton Dam, St. Jude's Hospital, the upgrade of the city of Castries. All of it. All of it. I'm not saying not to finish the hospital, but they all criticized infrastructure and all the projects well criticized. These are the same projects in your budget to continue. And infrastructure is now a priority for you. When infrastructure roads, people do not eat roads. Give the people their money. Rodney Bay Improvement Project, Mr. President, said that the Rodney Bay Improvement Project cost the Prime Minister and his address $16 million for less than one mile of road. Mr. President, there is a significant difference in only resurfacing a road in comparison to construction of new components. You have a fallen highway, two roundabouts, sidewalks, drainage, writing system, beautification, land acquisition. But compare that, compare that, Mr. President, to the bridge at Guadalajara that cost $11 million. Compare the $16 million to the Guadalajara bridge that cost $11 million between 2011 and 2016. Mr. President, we have seen the stoppage of all road projects by this incoming government. And we want to know what is happening with the continuation and completion of the primary and secondary roads around the country. And in particular, interest to me, Mr. President, are the roads in Souffre, the continuation of the new development roads. We have done three quarters of it. The continuation of the Esperance Diamond Road, which Senator Antoine uses all the time, the drainage and the culvers that had to go on to the roads, the old French road and at Belfort and the Guadalajara roads. What is happening to it? The people of Souffre want to know what is happening to the rest of the roads. Mr. President, I thought there was no asphalt and concrete in St. Lucia. Hence, the roads were stopped, but I was wrong. I was wrong with my stations. Mr. President, based on the magnitude of paving I saw occurring two weeks ago for the Prince's visit. All of a sudden, I wish that there would be a royal visit every month. There should have been a royal visit every month for this government to pave and putthole and patch every road in St. Lucia. Mr. President, halls of justice, police headquarters, nothing new to this parliament, Mr. President, on the hall of justice and police headquarters. There was talk of a bold agreement in the budget presentation, but no details given. With which entity is the government partnering to undertake the bold agreement? The previous government, the previous administration, we were going to build the halls of justice on that same site with a bold agreement with the NIC. From day one, we said it, so this is nothing new. Tell the people with whom, which entity, which individual, you all are going to want to take the bold agreement for the halls of justice. Mr. President, we already know that this administration is a name-changing government. They have changed the name of village tourism to community-based tourism. They've changed command center to COVID management center. They've changed confinement, but they've changed curfew to confinement. Lipstick changes. That's all. Through you, Mr. President, I would like to ask, with this name change, is it going community-based tourism, as they call it? Will it expedite the ongoing projects in Anselary, on the waterfront in Anselary? When will the Palmis Road Vending Facility Project in Souffre recommends? And when will the tenants out of the Palmis Vending Facility get an opportunity to use the facilities to earn a livelihood? But I hope it is not true what I'm hearing from the tenants, Mr. President, that there is a deliberate attempt against the vindictiveness. There is a deliberate attempt to allow their contracts to run out so the booths will be given to other selected persons. I hope that's not the case. Mr. President, I hear the Minister of Sports made some reckless statements against the Souffremini Stadium. His words, I am certain, dented the pride of the good people of Souffremini Stadium. His comments on the status of the Souffremini Stadium reveals his limited and myopic view of facility development and upgrade and underscores the absence of a plan by this administration for sports in general. Mr. President, the Souffremini Stadium was designed in several phases. Phase one, I'm referring to sports infrastructure in the budget presentation, maintenance and sporting facilities, page 45. Phase one, build the truck and field and add new lighting. Phase two, add video scoreboard and new audio system. Phase three, upgrade the existing stadium grandstand and dressing rooms and improve the press and venue operation areas, including concession booths and toilet spectators. And phase four, construction of the courts and the pool at the southern end of the stadium. Mr. President, the project was ongoing at the change of administration last year. By now phase two and phase three should have been completed. But again it is at a standstill. Mr. President, our nation can be proud of this fact as a first step in what the former government had planned to reenergize sport, fitness and wellness in our country. Souffremini Stadium is a great start to what the UWP planned as a 40 plus sports infrastructure master plan for St. Lucia. Add into it the football pitches for Mikud South, Mikud North, January and the National Sports Academy. It was a national plan. The master plan for sports should be embraced by the St. Lucia Liberal Party and budget should be approved to continue improving our sporting infrastructure because sports infrastructure is critical if we have to promote, if we have to develop sports in the country. The meeting stadium, Mr. President, is a sports venue fit for purpose on a small ground that still meets international standards for football and most track and field events. And it was just a couple of additional works to be done on phase two and three to complete it. And so Mr. President, I call on the minister of sports to complete the various phases of transformation of this facility with the grandstand, the dressing rooms, the seating structures and other key facilities, such as the press room and the construction booths. Mr. President, also in Souffre, if you can give me the latitude, land was acquired and cleared to construct a new cricket ground at Ruby in Souffre. And to this present day, no attention has been given. Excavation was ongoing with levelling of the field area but again another project abandoned by this administration and we call on them to continue with Ruby Cricket Ground. Was that? I just said land was acquired, it was cleared, excavation had started, we demitted office, your line government, complete the Ruby Cricket Ground. Your law governing. We started in 2019. Mr. President, Mr. President, I know how much time I have left. Senator, you now have five minutes to complete your presentation. Mr. President, Relief measures, page 64. The Prime Minister outlines a list of relief measures is stated to bring relief to individuals, households and companies. Mr. President, as I reviewed the measures, I saw nothing new, which is geared at cushioning the brutal impact of the inflation crisis, which is affecting every section of our society. In addition to there not being any new measure, the proposal from the Prime Minister creates no immediate impact. None whatsoever. Immediate. So, President, at a time when revenue has returned to pre-COVID level, all we see is a government passing on all increases to the people. The pass it on government. Everything pass it on to them. There is pure disregard and no protection for consumers. The rising cost of living is very worrisome for many, Mr. President. And I need to remind you that when revenue dropped by 60 percent in 2020 at the height of COVID-19, we, the former administration, gave more to the people of this country. Imagine the magnitude of support we would have been given to our people if we were collecting revenue at the rate the government is collecting today, Mr. President. Mr. President, let us take a look at the no-solution measures. No-solutions measures are planned by the Prime Minister in his budget. Subsidizing cooking gas. But this has already been done and is nothing new. As a matter of fact, you have to add more to the subsidy for cooking gas. The price of cooking gas keep on going up every three weeks. Add more to the subsidy. We have been subsidizing cooking gas forever. Increased annual tax allowance from $18,000 to $25,000. How can this be considered to provide immediate? We are talking about immediate relief when this takes effect in 2023. And the benefits will only be derived in 2024. Remember he said immediate. Immediate. But the benefits will be derived in 2024. Cushion in consumers from the full impact of rising fuel prices. Mr. President, UWP administration maintained the $14.95 ceiling even when there were similar high oil prices. Now you have fiscal space, maintain the ceiling cap. You have raised fuel by $2 prioritizing the payment of tax refunds. This is not new. In non-government revenue, always process refunds on a monthly basis. They always prioritize it. Waving interest and penalty charges welcoming. But it is not new. Providing grants and loans for youth and small, micro, and medium-sized businesses. This has already been undertaken at the SLDB through the AF project. So specify that it is augmenting or complimenting existing windows of support. Don't make it look as if it is something new. Providing soft grants and soft loan funding for community-based tourism businesses. This had previously been formalized through support of the curriculum development fund under the Village Tourism Project. And Senator Fede is going to tell us more about it. Funding for creative industries can involve emancipation. Mr. President, since when have our major festivals been downgraded to relief measures? Is that how we should be viewing and treating our creatives? And why isn't Junekwe all not been given such consideration? Or is only capable of emancipation? Why Junekwe all increased the amount and range of support services for vulnerable groups? Mr. President, while the Prime Minister gave no specifics on this relief, let me remind him what we did for vulnerable groups during COVID under the Social Stabilization Program. Quickly, Mr. President, before I wrap up, which were reduction in electricity fuel surcharge to offset bills of qualifying households by between $50 and $100 per month, over 11,000 persons benefited. Expansion of the public assistance program from 2600 to 5600 households. Increasing child disability grants from $200 to $300. Increasing grants for persons, even if HIV, from $100 to $200. Increasing grants for children in foster care from $200 to $300. In addition to all these measures, Mr. President, the income support program for both NIC contributors and non-contributors benefited over 16,000 individuals and hygiene packages and food baskets were distributed to vulnerable households. Mr. President, I could go on and on, Mr. President, but I don't have to wrap up. And in conclusion, Mr. President, there were many promises made by the Prime Minister at the 2021-2022 policy debate when he was the then leader of the opposition. From Mr. People of St. Lucia, if they voted for his party, that he would immediately inject the following. $5 million to assist vendors and their families, $3 million for creative industrial media workers, $10 million grant for tour operators, dive and pleasure boat operators, $3 million fuel vouchers for both minibus drivers and fishers, $3 million beautification program, $1.5 million for family by support. He went further and even made more promises during the election campaign and in the SLP manifesto, that once they formed government, he would triple the income support for women from $500 to $1,500. Exempt woke us up to $4,000 per month from taxes, etc. And so, Mr. President, I'm wrapping up. I cannot support or give any credence to this bill as I have no confidence in this labor government to manage and govern the affairs of this country. This budget has not provided any inspiration, hope, or any form of stimulation to address the plight of the people. It is a gimmick, a lie, and a total disregard for the promises made to the people of St. Lucia. I thank you, Mr. President. Senator Jawa here. Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon and good afternoon to my fellow senators. Through you, Mr. Deputy, let me wish all mothers advance Mother's Day greetings. We want to let you know that we love you and we appreciate you, especially to my mother. Mr. President, permit me just for a minute to recognize our youth parliamentarians who are with us today in the presence of Mr. John Tench of Castry Southeast, my home constituency, who will be the Minister for Social Transformation, Ms. Courtney Adrian from Babuno, the Minister for Infrastructure, and of course, Mr. Allen's plans, who will serve as a presiding officer as Speaker of the House of Assembly. We are very, very pleased to note that youth parliament will resume next week Wednesday and the Senate will meet next Thursday. And so, Mr. President, I want to make a special appeal to our people who are viewing at home to tune in next week Wednesday and Thursday to support our young people, because the next time around or soon, very soon they will be the ones who will be taking up these chairs. Mr. President, I rise to make my contribution to the Appropriations Bill 2022-2023. It's not my first time doing it. I first made a presentation in 21 as an Opposition Senator on the then Appropriations Bill. It was actually April 20th for 20, what we know as World Cannabis Day, a day that is filled with events where persons advocate for the legalization and decriminalization of cannabis. And I remember speaking of the Rastaman who could not practice his religion because any marijuana use in St. Lucia was illegal. But now, one year later, Mr. President, I can smile because this administration came into government. We decriminalized up to 30 grams of marijuana and the Rastaman can now practice freely. But some on the other side who said they would support it, when a photo of a Rastaman with a joint was used in the house, they were shaking their head and saying this is inappropriate, but we want to talk about hypocrisy. Mr. President, I wanted to start my presentation this way to establish a sense of understanding amongst us that this government is a government that means business. When we say we are going to do something, we are going to get it done. Mr. President, this appropriations bill comes on the heels of life-changing achievements by the government. Even in the first 100 days, yes, of course, like the passing of the cannabis bill, decriminalizing of 30 grams of marijuana, making significant improvements in our health sector. Because remember when we came in, we tripled our testing capacity. You know what they said and it's so easy how they forget. Y'all want to be like Barbados, you all believe in second testing. They did not do what they were supposed to do with that $323 million, almost half a billion dollars that they borrowed for COVID support, but they want to blame the next administration for the rising cases, for deaths. We had Delta, we had Omnicron, but up to a day like today, the only thing we could see is an accountability for 20 million of that amount. Where did the rest of the money go? But Mr. President, let's get back to business. We tripled efforts in the health sector. We reinstated the one laptop per child program, the one they say that have no gang. We allocated 10 million towards repairing homes for people. And I'm saying all of these things because the colleague senator is acting like he didn't know that these things happened. These are things we said we would prioritize as a government when we come into government, social programs, health sector. But Mr. President, we are able to do in less than a year what they could not do in five years, but we will not be derailed. We will remain focused. The trend was already showing that COVID was on a rise. Let's not try this here. The trend was showing so, Mr. President. We see quite outstanding relief measures in this bill, especially considering the times that we are facing, these challenging times as a small island state. This Russian war on Ukraine. How did St. Lucia reach in that? These are things we had absolutely no control over, Mr. President. But of course, we are the ones feeling the effects, the rise in prices, the rises in oil. And of course, let's not forget the dent to the labor sector due to what has transpired with COVID-19 persons being released from the workforce, persons losing their jobs. But Mr. President, even among these challenges, our prime minister has still been able to subsidize the fuel that they think is not a big deal. It is a very big deal because I was in Barbados representing the Senate, the House of Parliament just a couple of weekends ago, and I would not be able to afford fuel in those territories. But our government loses, well, in fact, absorbs the cost, almost $1.6 million monthly so we can subsidize fuel. Don't act like this is not a big deal. Even among those challenges, our prime minister has been able to absorb that 15% increase in rice, 31% increase in flour, 28% increase in brown sugar, 75% increase in white sugar at a cost of $9.8 million. The government is absorbing it for the nacears who see that the government is doing nothing. Millions monthly being absorbed by the government to cushion the bloc. It's very significant. Mr. President, I heard the members speak of victimization and stopping of projects. We all know it is not a wise job. It is not wise to start a job which was left a mess by the previous employee and continue that mess. You were hired to make a difference, to make a change, to make things better, Mr. President. You had your opportunity to say all of that. You could not say it. Mr. President, this government was given a mandate to clean up the mess that the country was left in because remember they said the country was broker. The government was elected based on transparency and accountability on the premise that St. Lucian's trusted the state of candidates that Honourable Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre presented to St. Lucian's and they voted them out. We have begun the cleaning up process. But Mr. President, the reason why I talk about this is because they will tell you, as I said, that when we came in, we stopped projects. But that is not true, Mr. President, because as we speak, we understand the value of continuance of some of those projects and they are continuing. But when you look at the grozily highway that the members spoke about, the Minister for Infrastructure gave us a clearer understanding of what really transpired with that construction of that four-lane highway. 32 million dollars. When the Labour Party Administration left office. Senators, I understand the need for crosstalk, but can we just keep it on a little bit? I'm having a little difficulty hearing the presenter. Thank you. Thank you for your protection, Mr. Deputy. When the Labour Party Administration left office in 2015, an agreement was signed with the Q80 fund for 32 million dollars. In 2017, the United Workers Party came in and they cancelled the loan. Want to talk about stopping projects? And then the last minute closer to election, 16 million dollars, half of the budgeted amount for the four-lane highway. 16 million dollars for less than a mile of road? Have you been to the constituency of Grozily to ask the people what they think about that? Half of the allocation gone for less than a mile of road. But a special prosecutor is coming, so we will get more information on that. Mr. President, you heard earlier how much we've been. With the mismanagement of this project by the United Workers Party Administration, you can well imagine that the costs of this project may well double because now, with the constraints of the supply chain and the cost of materials going up, our construction sector will feel that significant blow. But Mr. President, Mr. Deputy, when we came into government and we did our assessment of the outstanding projects, this was one project that needed to be paused. There were too many irregularities and further investigation will take place. But while this project has paused, our Prime Minister has announced that discussion is happening with the Q80 fund so we can look to reinstate the financing of that project. It will get done. We always have to clean up after them, Mr. President, but they are the ones who are saying we are stopping projects and victimizing people. Now, if we want to talk about victimization, we can, you know, because I remember watching the news several years ago and seeing how the United Workers Party victimizes their own, the then leader of the opposition who had his office near Quartz on the show seat, he was removed and replaced by the then member for Miku South, persons whose family members were founding members of the United Workers Party. You see the cameras on them walking outside with their boxes. Two years, these people were unemployed, victimizing their own people. And you want to talk about victimization? And at the Senua labor party, not one person has been victimized. What we have seen, Mr. Deputy, is if projects have come to a pause because we need to ensure that we are managing the finances of our country or if projects have been completed. That's what you have seen or contracts have ended. We don't victimize people, Mr. President. But again, hypocrisy. We treat our people better than that. We put them first. We want to talk about projects. It clearly seems to me, Mr. President, that they don't remember because the wind farm project in January that day stopped. If they didn't stop it, we wouldn't have to be coming to borrow for it. That's not even good. But the senator, Mr. Stanislaus, spoke about Sufran. I know the current minister for sports to be a well-learned gentleman in the sports arena, a national athlete in football. He played cricket with Senator Fede. So Senator Fede can attest to that. I know he has some experience there. And there was another former national athlete in the person of the member for January North who was in the house when he said that, but he didn't dispute it. But it had to take that same sports minister to put lights on a court in Bonte. Lights. Something you all could not do in five years, Mr. President. Less than a year. Five and a half years. You could not even put lights on a court, but you want to challenge when people are telling you that you did something wrong. Mr. President, that is just their modus operandi. But let's move on. The opposition senator said, if we are given devices, we have to provide the programs to support. But it clearly seems to me that she did not read the following page because she just quoted one part, Mr. President, if I can draw your attention to the section under education, page 42, that page speaks of the OECS program for educational advancement and relevant learning, the Pearl program, not the pull of the Caribbean, which they promised us. The Pearl program, it speaks of a grant of 27 million where the major highlight of this program is to introduce the new digital curriculum where student development will go beyond academics. The same thing she was asking was just on the following page. They do not read. And that is why they could not understand the mathematical problem that we were able to solve in one year of being in government less than a year. We found money, we found ways, we repurposed, we did what we had to do, what we had to do. So many achievements by our prime minister, somebody we can trust. They could not do that in five years. Mr. President, about the Grosile Highway, while this project has been paused, we see that Prime Minister hasn't announced something else in the pipeline for Saint Lucians. He announced that work has started on the upgrade of the Millennium Highway West Coast Road, which is expected to create employment for 250 to 300 persons. And the key word here, Mr. President, is work has started. So let me pause for a second if you permit me to address something that Senator Herod brought up, on roads. Mr. President, this thing about people don't eat roads, people don't eat roads, as if they want to portray or they want to spin a narrative to not put things in context. When we spoke about roads, you know what our situation was, Mr. Deputy? People were dying, COVID cases were increasing. We were simply saying this was not a priority at the time. But of course, we see cases have reduced significantly by the efforts of the Minister for Health. Thank you to the Minister for Health and the frontline workers who work day and night because we triple testing capacity at the Ezra Long Laboratory. We did all what we thought needed to happen, Mr. President. And that is why we are recovering, and so we can now focus on the roads. We can now focus on expanding our economy. So don't try to spin things because St. Lucien's not stupid. That is why they did what they did on July 26, 2021. Mr. President, we're still on employment. And I have to say this because it seems like the opposition members do not understand. So I need to break it down for them. We learned that the long awaited growth of a police station and the halls of halls of justice will be constructed in this financial year. 100 jobs, jobs, Mr. President. These are the things that people are looking for now as we recover from this COVID-19 pandemic. We all know that our workforce has suffered a huge blow due to this pandemic. People have been displaced, lost their jobs, salary cuts. We had to transition almost fully to nearly operating in a virtual space. And then we saw many business ideas springing up as a result. Now, I have to wonder, Mr. President, if our Prime Minister had some foresight, the same way he had the foresight on the one-laptop child program because our children did move almost fully to a virtual world. Excuse me. But he was able to campaign and now design a ministry, what we know as the youth economy, to address those same business ideas that sprung up as a result of the pandemic. Mr. President, the member wanted to know about the youth economy. And I will tell him that youth economy is about employment, is about taking the skills that silence of our young people and nurturing it into enterprise. We are taking hundreds of job opportunities that can be created from that ministry, from that $10 million allocation. And I want to thank the Prime Minister for doing this for our young people because under this Inusha Labour Party administration, you will not hear us telling young people that they feel entitled. Young people represent the majority of our population. How can you not consider them? So the $10 million from the youth economy, I will break it down in a little while for you, Mr. President. We will do what we have to do with the resources that we have to help develop our youth. Mr. President, the senator from Sufra spoke about continuance of talent development in the creative sector. In the orange economy, it's still going to continue. We will still see the creatives, the singers, the dancers, the gamers, the artists, hairdressers, the spa therapies that he spoke about, in the blue economy, fishers, those in water spots, the divers, the green economy, the agro processing, yes, it's going to be there. Farmers, packers, they will get gainful employment through the youth economy. Hundreds of jobs because the challenge that our young people face right now is an employment for the benefit, well, for your benefit, Mr. Deputy, there will be training, mentoring, marketing, and financial support. As I remember when I was straight out of South Lewis Community College, I had a few ideas, but for me to get alone to develop my ideas, I needed a credit line for about two years. Our young people now, by the time they save up in that two years, somebody else with the finance incomes and sweeps that idea, and that leaves our people discouraged. But under the youth economy, we will create easier access to funding and financing. I don't know what about that, that they cannot understand because it's been said in this honorable house over and over. Mr. President, Mr. Deputy, we will see the strengthening of existing business structures, research, development of technology for our young people because they need to adapt to the times, capacity building, e-commerce, so their ideas can be monetized, skill developments, and yes, I spoke about the training because they need to be able to adapt to international standards and best practices. We are thinking beyond our borders. We are thinking of jobs. That's their economic relief. That's the relief that our Prime Minister is offering our people today. Mr. President, the Prime Minister did announce that a statutory board with its own board of directors will be formed to oversee this youth economy and that it will allow for a bottom up approach where they can tell us what it is that they want to invest in, what it is that they want to do, rather than us telling them what we think they need to do. This is how we are inclusive of our young people. This is what this government is about. That's not things that you all know. Mr. President, we also heard of the announcement of Skills 758 and I am particularly looking forward to that. This is an app that will allow young people to register their skillset, upload their work and their resumes, and connective employers locally and regionally. We are thinking beyond borders, Mr. President. That's how far the youth economy can go. And I was very happy when the Prime Minister made this announcement that in collaboration with the Ministry for Youth Development and Sports, this app will be launched within the next few weeks. Mr. President, we looked at the presentations in the lower house and we see that with every single presentation, there were opportunities for gainful employment. There were jobs. And I really wanted to highlight jobs because the members don't seem to understand that this is what our bill is all about, creating opportunities to empower our people. When we speak of that same community-based tourism, Mr. President, we are also thinking of jobs. We are thinking of expanding the tourism and hospitality sector. We see that Sandals and other hotels have already given us a commitment that they will be expanding. We are getting it done because we were promised, how many hotels were we promised? And we were promised 10,000 rooms by the previous administration and the former minister of tourism is seated in this house today. So I hope when it is his time, Mr. President, that he can tell us what happened to the hotels and the 10,000 rooms. Mr. President, we get it done. In this appropriations bill, we see allocations for expanding. Not that we are doing away with any of the accommodations, but we are expanding to our communities where tourists can experience authentic opportunities, where that currency can filter, where you can see ancillary on the map for something. You see shows on the map for craft. You see castry southeast, Peter, flowing forest. Yeah, we have a trail there. Maybe our minister will explore this a little more, member for castry southeast. We have opportunities, Mr. President, and these are opportunities that will create employment. We're talking about immediate relief. Okay, we all know you come and you pass your appropriations bill. And then the funds are allocated to do what it is that you need to do. So the members are acting that this is as if this is the first time that they are debating a bill on an appropriations bill. It's not. So let's not try to fool the people, Mr. President. We see how government has committed to expanding the agricultural sector. And although the supply chain globally has presented us with those challenges, Mr. President, we see support for the B sector CMOS. That's a high value item. 1.4 million towards our cocoa. When you travel to Europe and you find St. Lucian chocolate on the shelves, it's exotic. It's priced at a very high rate, Mr. President. These are things we need to be expanding because COVID really taught us that lesson to diversify. So there are measures that are happening within the agricultural sector that will take care of our people, Mr. President. And of course, livestock support to the livestock sector and the relocation of that 20 million dollar boost issue, mid processing plants, that one in view for that the UWP decommissioned. Mr. President, they talk about stopping projects, not even bananas. They could send to France. They stop projects and they do nothing. Mr. President, we continue with the section on housing and urban renewal where we saw that even before this budget, our government was able to immediately implement the housing repair program to the tune of 10 million dollars. Persons who were differently able, the elderly, the shut-in, low income families, they benefited. And I make mention of this, Mr. President, because it provides a path for us to understand that the Senucha Labour Party, under the leadership of Hon. Philip J. Pierre, was able to do all of these things in less than a year. Can you imagine what we can do in five? Mr. President, people find gainful employment under the Senucha Labour Party administration. We saw rent relief for CDC tenants of over four million dollars. Still in the budget, we see an additional allocation. Mr. President, 40 new lots will be provided in southern parts of the island and 150 island wide, again, another four million allocated for this. Then we have the rent to own initiative, one that I'm very excited about, which I know we will hear a whole lot more about in the next coming days. Wait for it. I speak of all of these opportunities because they provide jobs. They provide that immediate relief that our people are looking for. Food prices, yes, have risen, but that doesn't automatically translate to an increase in what you earn, Mr. President. But our Prime Minister did announce the start of a process that is long overdue, the revision of the Labour Act to address what St. Lucian's know as the minimum wage. The St. Lucia Labour Party will be coming to the house to make those adjustments long overdue. These are things you all should have done, but we will get it done, Mr. President. Relief measures. Workers earning $25,000 annually will no longer be paying income tax. You think that's not a big deal? It's a big deal for them because that's nearly 15,000 persons from the public and private sector who will be impacted, who will be benefiting from this. If you earn up to $4,000, we did say that we would work towards eliminating income tax for persons who make $4,000. Mr. President, I'm happy to report, according to the Prime Minister, that we are halfway there. We are seeing that $2,083 is already being exempted. You're deductible for personal income tax, Mr. President. It has increased from $18,000 to $25,000. That's an increase of $7,000. These things mean a lot to people. We see for the period of November 2021 to March 2022, $3.8 million in tax refunds has already been paid to almost 2,000 taxpayers. That is relief, Mr. President. $10,000 for the youth economy, jobs, $10 million, $10 million, sorry, for the youth economy, $10 million for community tourism, $10 million for MSMEs, $10 million for housing assistance, Mr. President. These are tremendous strides to taking our people from the mess that we inherited to a higher level, Mr. President. Much needed employment at this time to help cushion the blow and create and support sustainable livelihoods in St. Lucia. All the things I mentioned, we campaigned on when we said we were going to put people first. And this is what St. Lucia, what we told St. Lucia's we would do. And we are doing it, Mr. President. But sadly, members, opposites, you heard them calling this budget all kinds of names, like the former member for Souffre, not seeing the value and how these initiatives can truly impact the lives of people. If they are honest with themselves, Mr. President, they will tell you that what is presented here will have a positive impact even on their lives, on the lives of their friends, their family members, the people that they care about. Because this is a budget for all, not just one set of persons. It's all. They have no Belarus doctrine here. So, Mr. President, as I close, I want to encourage members on the other side, well, at least the one member that is left to address us today, to see the bigger picture, see the value, the honesty and the transparency, support taking our country to a higher level, Mr. President, rather than just coming here to oppose for opposing sake, because everything that they oppose, I have been able to provide an explanation for why, because it is here. The Prime Minister's 2022-23 budget address, empowering our people, transforming our economy, it is not here. So, please do not come to the House and peddle lies and disinformation, just at a deliberate attempt to score cheap political points, Mr. President. So, as I said, I was closing, and I do hope that the final member on the opposite side can lend his support to the appropriations bill, because as we know, this is the most important budget, most important bill that is going to significantly impact the lives of our people. I want to take this opportunity to thank our civil servants who work tirelessly day and night on this bill, persons from the Prime Minister's office as well, and also our good Prime Minister, Hon. Philip J. Peer, for his wisdom and foresight and for making those recommendations in this budget that will help us take our country to the next level. Thank you. The President acknowledged the light that was put on. In that case, it was yours, and because you have been acknowledged, you are on this week. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I want to today rise in protest and in stiff opposition against the appropriation bill as presented by this Government. Mr. President, the people of St. Lucia would have tuned in to hear the maiden presentation of the SLP administration with much anticipation and hope that perhaps better days might finally be ahead. But instead, Mr. President, what they discovered is a budget presentation characterized by broken promises, flawed philosophies, and unprecedented duplicity and shameless flip-flopping. But rather than deal with the salient issues of rising cost of living, high unemployment, and a spiralling out-of-control crime situation, the Government seemed more preoccupied in settling petty political scores. All guns thus far, Mr. President, have been aimed and pointed towards one man, Alan Shastney, the former Prime Minister and leader of the opposition. Never before have we witnessed such vindictiveness. So much so, Mr. President, there were eight ministerial speeches that were sacrificed between the two sittings of the appropriation bill. Honourable Senator, we're not here to discuss what went on in the other House. We're here to discuss the appropriation bill, and I would remind you that your contribution should speak to the provisions of the policy statement as presented by the Prime Minister and the member for Castries East. President, may I politely and respectfully ask for some clarity? The appropriation bill... Mr. Senator Fede, I couldn't be clearer than I have been. This is the appropriation bill. You are speaking to the provisions of the bill. Yes, it was laid in the House. We're not going to address the sideshow that took place in the lower House. We are speaking to the policy prescriptions of the Government. I would advise you, I will give you the way if you need, but I would advise you to speak to that. Thank you very much. Very well, Mr. President. Thank you for your guidance. And so, Mr. President, rather than the sideshows which you have alluded to, the budget debate and the appropriation bill, in my view, Mr. Speaker, should have instead focused on the following. Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, you're better looking than the Speaker. Sorry. Adequate solutions to deal with the rising cost of living in the supermarkets and its untold effects on the people of St. Lucia. Mr. President, we see that the main supplier of food items in our country and general commodities, massive stores, announcing that they have witnessed in their store a significant increase in the amount or in the prices of commodities. And they have cited a number of factors. Mr. President, this is having a significant impact on the people of St. Lucia. And so, rather than politics as usual, rather than all of the fluff, rather than the bluff that we have seen so far, rather than trying to take claims for a project that doesn't belong to this administration, what the focus should be on is really to address the hardship that the people are feeling at this present time, as a result of so many things that is spiraling out of control. Mr. President, the bus drivers, if they don't get a subsidy, might go under and has indicated, Mr. President, that there was a tool. Senator, could you restrict your presentation to the policy prescriptions? You are here to respond favorably or unfavorably to that which was presented in the lower house by the prime minister, more commonly known as the budget statement. We call it the appropriation bill. Okay? Now, if you are going to refer and make your own prescriptions, please align it to what is contained in this. You would realize that all the speakers, all the speakers and the members who came before you responded and provided their positions and what was contained in here. I will not allow you to go on on your own frolic. I would advise you to speak, respond favorably or unfavorably to what was presented in here. This is why we are here today. This is what we are debating. Mr. President, incidentally, the issue of the bus fare is mentioned here. Mr. President, the inflation which is gripping this country and in the prime minister's budget speech and in the estimates of revenues and expenditures, it suggested that inflation in this country has risen by 2.1 percent average in 2021. Now, additionally, it also stated, Mr. President, that in the latter part of the year, going up to December, we had an out of control inflation rate of 4.1 percent in the consumer prices of the social and economic reveal. Now, Mr. President, that would mean I am breaking it down, Mr. President, that would mean that as a result of the high inflation, which you are very much aware of, that gas prices have gone up. As mentioned in the prime minister's budget speech, the prices of food has gone up. There is no frolic. This is all as a result of what is taking place in the general economy of this country. So, Mr. President, rather than focusing on the politics, rather than focusing on the side shows, the government had to deal with a number of those issues that are affecting the people of St. Lucia. I hope I've made that clear. Mr. President, the government in this appropriation bill failed to deal with matters such as income support to the people of St. Lucia. This budget has failed to address those issues. And at a time when the tourism sector is only 47 percent back, as mentioned in the social economic review and in the prime minister's budget speech, the recovery of the economy is incomplete. And so with that situation which exists at present, there is need for income support, which this administration had as a campaign promise to the people of St. Lucia, various workers of this country. We need the $1,500 to go at a time of rising food and commodity prices to the people of St. Lucia so that they can get some relief more so, more than ever. Mr. President, I didn't promise it. It was the SLP administration that promised it, and so they've got to deliver to the people. Mr. President, this appropriation bill, why I do not support it and why I'm speaking out against it today, failed to deal with the public transportation. There's a lack of a clear path to deal with subsidies for the public transportation sector. And this is the point I'm making, that if we don't subsidize the public transportation sector soon, it could not only have untold damages and the cost of operation of medieval drivers, but it can have a ripple effect on people that are earning very small salaries, that are coming from rural communities, and that are working in retail sectors in St. Lucia stores in castries. And that will be confronted by the possibility of increases in bus fares. And these are real challenges and real issues. And this budget has not addressed these issues. But what they seem to be focused on, Mr. President, are petty politics. They're here to settle political scores, political vendettas, rather than dealing with the issue. Mr. President, we suggested that in light of the rising cost of living, in light of the price of gas increases, the LPG gas has been increased to $42, Mr. President. $42 early in the year, it was $30. And it has jumped, Mr. President, to a significant level by over 20%. And so one of the things that we see that is continuing to affect many people is the fact, and mentioned again, the electricity surcharge has been outlined in both documents. In fact, the cost of electricity, the social economic review, is increasing by 7%. And if you check on the consumer prices where it deals with inflation in the local economic developments, you would see that one of the biggest costs. So while the inflation level is at 4.1, with the electricity, it's above average. And so many families are having to confront high electricity bills because of the out-of-control increases that we see in the electricity surcharge. What is missing in this budget is a program to deal with that in a specific and targeted way. Mr. President, I would have loved to have seen this government implement a policy whereby at least 10,000 families could have gotten $100 per month for a period of six months, Mr. President. It would have cost them only $1 million per month to ensure that these families get the help that is required. This is why, Mr. President, I'm telling you that there is nothing in this budget for the poor people of this country. Mr. President, I move on to another reason why I don't support this budget. This government, while they were campaigning, told the fishermen of this country that they were going to remove the excise tax. They indicated that the excise tax we were charging to build roads, that that was unfair to the fishermen of this country. They said that fishermen, fishermen, there are no roads in the sea. Their words not mine. And so in the maiden budget presentation, I was coming here to see that, okay, they brought several bills here that adjusted taxes and property tax and so on, and I didn't see it come. But I thought that at least that in this, their first budget, that they would have addressed a sector that needs help, a sector that is facing the increases in gas prices, a significant input as they go out to seize. And I didn't hear the senator, who is usually very, very strong on issues pertaining to the fishery sector. I didn't hear her mention it, but there is need to remove the excise tax for the fishermen sooner rather than later. This has to be something that happens now, and I am not in support of the budget because I don't see it within the appropriation bill. So Mr. President, I don't support this budget. Mr. President, in this government told the people that in 100 days, in 100 days they will give tax refunds below $5,000. Promise. Promise. You see, in 100 days of winning the election, they will give the people tax refunds that are below $1,000. Today, in the appropriation bill, they are offering the people tax refunds of $500 and below. This is the kind of bluff, this is the kind of empty promises, Mr. Speaker, that make people lose confidence in politics and politicians. This level of inconsistency. And Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, I am very sorry. I simply do not have any excuse for this government for failing to deliver on the range of promises, and I'll tell you why in a little bit. So instead, Mr. Speaker, of lifting the tax threshold from $18,000 to $48,000 a year, as promised, the government in this appropriation bill has said that they can't do that. And what they have done instead is to raise the tax threshold from $18,000 to $25,000. Another broken promise. Now, what they have done is that they have raised the threshold from by $7,000 extra a year. Now, based on the income tax code, it would mean that the average person is saving $700 a year or $58 a month on these new tax breaks. $58 a month, Mr. President, can only get you a tank of cooking gas and a bag of bread. There is nothing that is exciting about this, which is why I say to you, Mr. President, that there is nothing new or innovative in this budget in the appropriation bill for it has failed to capture the essence of what needs to be done to address the systemic fiscal and economic challenges that have been gripping this country for years. There's no creativity. There's nothing new. Mr. President, I am moving on. The budget, as my colleague has said, is a vindication of the policies in many respects of the United Workers Party. And so if you notice a discomfort in the leader of government business to present certain facts here today, it is because he knows fully well that they couldn't take credit for the boom that we see in construction because the social and economic review has clearly stated that the reason why we are the fastest growing economy in the OECS is because of the resurgence of the tourism industry. And this government, I challenged them to name one new policy that they have implemented since coming into office that has buttressed the tourism growth so that we can return at the unprecedented levels that we have. And so, Mr. President, the reason why tourism has come back so strong, the reason why tourism has come back so strong. One, this government, while the administration was saying that tourism was a sector where it's going to be hard to come back and that we were crazy for pinning our hopes and tourism and a whole host of false things that they said. What we did, Mr. President, is that we saw that there were a number of airplanes that were parked in various jurisdictions. You go to all of the airports, the major gateways, and one of the things that we recognized was that there were a lot of equipment available to fly to different destinations. We profited that opportunity, we worked with the Ministry of Health, and we put together some policies working with the private sector, and we had a lot of meetings to ensure that a lot of the travel protocols which we were putting in place within a very difficult time. When we opened up, there were no vaccines. Nobody knew that much what COVID was about, and so as a result of that, we gained some significant strides in the airlift. Now, number one, we saw the Chicago flight from American Airlines coming for the very first time in this country never happened before, and that flight has helped all of the tourism growth that we're seeing here today in the social economic review. We've seen from Dallas, a flight that the private sector had wanted for a very, very long time, came in from Dallas and came in with American Airlines. We've never in the history of tourism in this country had a Dallas flight before. We saw a flight from John F. Kennedy Airport. The St. Lucia Labor Party is on record of saying no to American Airlines when they were asking for marketing support back in the late 1990s. You don't remember that. You're a teacher. And so what happened was American Airlines pulled out of JFK, and JFK had no service with American Airlines for almost 20 years. We brought back American Airlines and checked the records of the Ministry of Tourism. You will see that the American Airlines service had not been serviced in St. Lucia for a very long time. And so that is extra capacity that you've gotten instituted by the United Workers Party administration. The other great thing that this administration did was that we brought JetBlue out of Newark, New Jersey for the very first time in the history of tourism management in this country. These are things that were done under difficult circumstances. We went out there with confidence. It's not like a trip to Dubai with no results. We went and we met with the airlines and we said that we have a plan to grow this destination and grow this market and we bolster confidence in the travel community. Now, when we said no to Virgin Atlantic, the opposition St. Lucia Labor Party administration said that we were crazy. Virgin was asking for 2.5 million U.S. annually. And we said no, because you know why, Mr. President? We believe that St. Lucia had reached a place where the brand was strong, the vibrancy of the people, the destination was one of quality. And so we said that we were getting so much airlift from other gateways, free of cost, and there's no way that we could afford to pay over a three-year period 2.5 million U.S. dollars. It works out to be somewhere in the region of 7.5 million U.S. dollars over a three-year period. Mr. President, we said no, but we never stopped negotiating and speaking to Virgin. And so within two weeks of this administration coming in, Virgin was ready to announce that the flight came back. Now, I'm going to give the Minister of Tourism some credit, because when he posted that fact on the Facebook page, he never took credit for it. But what he said, he spent the week engaging Virgin Atlantic. And so engagement just meant that we're having a discussion. But it doesn't necessarily mean that he acquired the credit for the return of Virgin Atlantic. Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, an airline does not make a decision to invest in a flight and take risk of millions of dollars in the space of two weeks. That's absolutely ridiculous. And if there's anyone in this room who wants to suggest that, I will say to you, please don't, because it would be tourism heresy to suggest that somehow an airplane in the space of two weeks will make a decision to fly to a destination. It is impossible. It is like saying that you can bring forth a baby in five months. It's not possible. So therefore, it has happened. So therefore, Mr. President, therefore, Mr. President, I'll say this to you, that continued on the path of building a strong airlift sector, which is why the the leader of government business in his role can feel comfortable and relaxed, because all the hard work has been done for him. The government for the first time got airlift capacity from British Airways that saw rotations from Heathrow Airport. The flights, Mr. Speaker, that came to the Caribbean normally would come from London, Gatwick. But we had a difficulty in connecting or making seamless connections to the European Gateway because it was two different airports. And so the logistics, Mr. Speaker, of making that, Mr. President, sorry, of making that happen was impossible. But with bringing the BA flight out of Heathrow, they create that opportunity and they give us an opportunity to test that market in a very good way. Now we see that Virgin is flying out of Heathrow. So, Mr. President, I am proud that the social economic review has now said that the plans of the United Workers' Party Administration has borne fruit. And that is why they can come in this house and boast of tourism arrivals. Now they have brought, and they have mentioned in the budget address, that the legislation which they seek to bring to the house, which they brought to the house, past as community tourism, that that is the panacea for economic development and tourism development. And it's the new thing. I don't have a problem. Because, Mr. President, it resembles, in fact, it's a twin brother. It's a carbon copy of what we call village tourism. And whether they twist it, they turn it, or they turn it upside down, or they want to paint it in a different color, Mr. President, it is village tourism. So call it whatever you want. As you say, Senator Stanzlers, this is a name-changing government. No original ideas that have come and that is one of the reasons, Mr. President, I am not supporting the budget presentation as presented here. Now, let's go further. This government, Mr. President, this government has had, they have the great fortune of a revenue position which has recovered significantly, significantly, came from $880 million in the estimates of revenues of an expenditure to over $1 billion. We've seen a recovery in the revenue of $140 million in new revenue. So this is why I'm saying to you, Mr. President, that they have no excuse to increase the subsidies in the various areas so that the people of St. Lucia can get relief where this inflation is affecting their pockets, is affecting their livelihoods. There is no way that this government can say that they cannot do it. Because, Mr. President, the fiscal space has been created in the short term, the CIP, Mr. President. I'll tell you, when we were there thinking where we will find money to lead this country out of one of the greatest recessions that the world has seen, the most, perhaps, impactful economic crisis the world has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s, we introduced a bond program under the CIP. This social economic review has indicated that the bond program has performed so well that this government has extended it by one year. It has moved from $70 million in revenue to $104 million in revenue. Mr. President, this is why we're saying to you that there is money. We left them in the National Economic Fund. Over $36 million, we built in a Web Day Fund. We were a responsible government. We didn't, Mr. President, do the irresponsible thing. We went on election, but we thought it was responsible to leave money in the event that something went wrong, which is why when we lost the elections, this government was able to come to the House and they were able to say we would like to tap monies from the National Economic Development Fund to the tune of $12 million so that we can finance the supplementary budget. And this is the money, Mr. President, that they used. That they used to ensure that those people who had issues with their damages to their homes, they were able to receive assistance in galvanize and also plywood and other building materials that were necessary because this is what you call strategic and wise, prudent economic planning. Now, in that regard, let's go to the social economic, the estimates and revenue expenditure. Summary page. Pull it up. The summary page, Mr. President, you will see that the interest payments have stabilized. In fact, it is only risen by $3 million. All of the borrowing that they are talking about, I would like the members to answer why did the interest payments only move from $165 to $168 million thereabout. You know why? Because, Mr. President, what they are talking about, the whole issue of refinancing loans to restructure the loans, they ensure that we move from short-term Treasury bills and government bonds to move into longer-term debt from international financial agencies. This has been done already. And so, despite all the borrowing that we had to do to plug the operating gap of running the government and finding money to stimulate the economy and to meet the excessive cost of healthcare that was necessary, we were still able, Mr. President, to reduce and to keep the interest rates payments stable. So what you found, Mr. President, is that the dead burden did not lay a heavy brick on the back of this government. We left a very sound financial footing for you. So, Mr. President, this is what I call prudent fiscal management. We got a lot of loans restructured. This government, they now have loans in the hundreds of millions, which they will not have to pay any principal on. They have moratoriums ranging from five to ten years. These are loans that we got and we went out strategically and negotiated and replaced with short-term debt. That program has started. Please stop trying to make it seem as if you came up with this idea you did not. There is nothing new in this budget, Mr. President. 40 years, five years, this period, 0.25 percent interest. So, Mr. President, they, the SLP administration, they like to talk about the urinary international airport and the leader of government business mentioned that we were placing the country in 450 million, I think, in debt. I took a note. So, what I want to do, Mr. President, is caution him to say that before you just accept a speaking point of your political party, you must first research it. Mr. President, if we went the route of the PPP in order just to save the debt, we would forego significant revenue and I want to go through some numbers. Under the St. Lucia Labor Party administration, a cabinet conclusion was, was published and is in the records to show that under the PPP arrangement, they were going to allow the operator to pick up a tax of 55 US dollars per head. Now, if we calculate the revenues that we were going to forego as a country, 55 million, and let's assume now in 2019 the arrivals were 423,000 people that came in the tourist market. Now, I will be very generous and I will calculate it at 350,000, which is 70,000 less than the arrivals. It would mean that 55 US dollars by 350,000 arrivals by 30 years would be over 1.5 billion dollars. Thank you. That this government would forego in revenue. If we calculated the same fee at 400,000 arrivals, it would be 1.8 billion dollars in revenue. Now, over a 30 year period, why the United Workers Party administration decided that we would not go that route is because why would we place such an important asset that is generating such tremendous revenue in the hands of a foreigner? I find it perplexing. I find it confusing that a government who campaigned on family, friends, and foreigners are so enthusiastic to place our airport in the hands of a foreign company. I just don't get it. So, Mr. President, what we did is we did two things. We said that we would have a funding program for the airport, which consists of the following. We borrowed a loan from the Taiwanese. That loan is for 20 years. There's a five year moratorium. It means that this government doesn't have to pay any principal for the next five years on the project. They pay interest only, but the interest is concessionary and below market rates are 4%. The interest on that program is 1%. 1% rather than what they would have to go and pay with bonds. Now, the other thing we did is that we instituted a 35 US dollars per passenger to go to Slasper, which would allow Slasper to raise some 38 million dollars annually to help to pay the debt for the airport. We also, Mr. President, increased the departure tax fees by 38 dollars on tourists coming to the country. So, going into the consolidated fund that doesn't have anything to do with financing the debt is an extra 41 million dollars, which this government has instituted so that when tourism comes back to its normal level, you would find that there is a 41 million dollars going into the consolidated fund. Before these measures, there was already a departure tax fee, which goes to the consolidation fund of 27 million dollars annually. Mr. President, why would the leader of government business want to then place 1.8 billion dollars in revenue into the hands of a foreign company to do what million dollars of landing fees you would place into the hands of a foreign company. Million dollars in renting shops and restaurants and bars that you would place into the hands of a foreign company when Slasper has shown you that over the last 25 to 30 years that they can run an airport and run it successfully, why would you want to do that? You know, Mr. President, one of the things I have learned is when you receive advice from the World Bank and the IMF, very often the advice that you receive, it's a broad brush approach where it worked somewhere else, so you should try that. But a government must understand and do the investigation of its own peculiar circumstances within its economy before you take on suggestions from the IMF and your World Bank because what the SLP administration is suggesting for our airport makes absolutely no sense. Mr. Speaker, under the numbers that I gave you, we would be able to pay the airport back in 10 years, but we have a 30-year loan to do it. And so, Mr. President, it then identified this very perplexing to be able to agree with the suggestion to take the airport back to PPP. I want to touch very quickly, Mr. President, on the issue of the youth economy, much has been said about that, but here are some figures for the government side. The youth unemployment rate, Mr. President, in 2015 was 41%. In 2019, it was at 31%. The UWP had made significant strides in creating jobs by reducing the youth unemployment rate by 10 percentage points, but Mr. President, by 20%, we had reduced youth unemployment in this country without naming the program. What I want this administration to understand, what I want them to see, all of the programs that we put in place for small businesses, for the creative industries, the $10 million that my colleagues spoke about from the Ministry of Commerce, the $10 million that was mentioned, that we negotiated with the Carracom Development Fund, and that is at the St. Lucia Development Bank that tourism SMEs are going to be able to get monies from. We don't need to set up another organization and pay half of, to pay $5 million in operating expenses just to bring about economic programs to the youth. What's that about? That is just more job for the boys, and that to me, Mr. President, is one reason I'm not supporting this budget. So Mr. President, in 2020, the youth unemployment rate due to COVID went up to 38.2%. Now it stands at 37%. I'm saying to this government that if you really want to move the needle of youth unemployment, if you really want to radically change the position of the youth, the extra $5 million to support small businesses will not be able to move the needle. You're just scratching the surface and you're not investing enough money into this program in the right areas. So our suggestion is, is that you remove the high administrative costs and put at least 90% of the monies to go towards funding youth enterprises so that we can see the rejuvenation of the youth economy in this country. Mr. President, the SLP administration also promised in this budget address that each household is going to have a degree. A degree for each household is an aspiration. A degree graduate for a household is in the program. Now I noticed that some members of the government side are looking at me rather perplexed, but I would just say read your own budget address. But each household, a degree graduate in each household. Now Mr. President, the last census in 2019 showed that there are 58,595 households in St. Lucia. That was 12 years ago. I mean, is this realistic? I mean, think about this. The census in 2010 showed that St. Lucia has 59,595. If this government was going to achieve this ambitious program in the next five years, they will have to produce 13,000 degrees every single year. Now, while they're at it in terms of promising, I'm saying to this government to move very fast because nine months have passed you by and you're still contemplating. You're still meeting. You're still endeavoring. You're still thinking and you're still considering. They can say that they cannot say the only thing that I have heard mentioned here today by the submissions from the government is when the senator from View Fort North, Senator Shallary said that she connected the electricity supply and electricity connection was the only thing I heard completed, right? But everything is on the consideration. Everything is on the evaluation. And so this is what, this is the problem I have with the St. Lucia Labor Party government. You're good at writing speeches. You're good at coming up with PR campaigns. You're good at really misleading people at election time. You're good at coming up with these concepts to pretend as if you really care about poor people. But when you get there is a totally different story. I cannot believe my eyes. Are you really serious? Are you really serious that you, you are going to look at the people of St. Lucia and in five years you will produce 60,000 degrees? 60,000? How much are you intending to spend on each degree program? Have you thought about that? And have you really thought about how many households are there in St. Lucia? Mr. President, when I see such ambitious, over ambitious, over ambitious, it leaves me to only one conclusion and that is this budget is nothing but another bluff, bluff and fluff and half truth. So we need to come clean with the people of this country. Mr. Speaker. Senator, you have five more minutes to conclude your presentation. Five more minutes. Thank you very much. I'll conclude in that time. Mr. President, the Labour Party all of a sudden, and my colleagues, I don't want to go too much into that, but I want to focus on a few matters in the- Just as long as it is within the prescriptions, as per the appropriation bill, sir. Don't you worry. Just a brief word of caution. Yeah. And so, you know, in the appropriation bill, they have proposed that under the DVRP program, if you want to go into the estimates of revenue, it's they had on the infrastructure. Yeah, we're not discussing the estimates of revenue. We're discussing the appropriation bill. They propose to build a millet road, the road from Vana to go through to Venus, through to Ansari. No problem. But Mr. President, the truth is this. When we assumed office, the SLP administration had totally cut off the bit from Vana to Venus, and the road was going from Venus to Ansari. We looked at it and we thought that 90% of the road was where you had snakes and where you had a lot of forest. And we thought, Mr. President, that what was left out of the road was where the people of millet live. And that is from Vana to Venus. And so we went to the World Bank and we redesigned this program. We redesigned this road. And today, Mr. President, I'm glad to see that this government is reaping the harvest of our hard work, of the designs that we've done, of the negotiation and the refinancing of the road, so that the people of millet can get a road, Mr. President, which is very important for them to get to their homes. I'm very happy to see that. But I want to ask this government, why did they stop the road from Venus to Techemer? And so I don't expect anyone here would have the answers to that. But the road was well on its way. And the people from Techemer were very excited about seeing for the first time they were having roads that were completely paved and done professionally. And I want to ask this government and prompted to improve and continue that road from Techemer to Venus. There was no need to stop the road. A project that was under construction. Mr. President, the canneries, markets and waterfront projects, I expect, and I've heard that in the tourism, the ministry, they will be having some tenders under the village tourism and also under the OECS tourism competitive project. Mr. President, I'm very proud to see that the government is continuing the Ancelere Waterfront Development Project. I believe that this is exciting times for the village of Ancelere. Because what we started, Mr. President, under the village tourism program, now they call it community tourism, is a restaurant project, Mr. President, which will allow Ancelere to participate meaningfully in tourism. A bed and breakfast facility, which will give the village some life, show people that Ancelere, a neglected village, is now going to get the necessary attention that it deserve. The fish fry building, Mr. President, very important for the reconstruction of the waterfront. And so what the whole philosophy was is to ensure that the people of Ancelere had in their own right become a tourism destination, that small business persons can go and rent those facilities from the government and make businesses out of them, create jobs within the community of Ancelere. All of the things that this government is saying to bring tourism to the people. This is the genesis and the philosophy started from the United Workers' Party. And I'm very, very proud to see that it's happening. And I feel very vindicated by a number of the policies. I have no problems with that. By the policies that this administration is instituting across the country. Mr. President, in my last few seconds, finally in wrapping up, I'll say this, Mr. President, on page 64 of the Prime Minister's budget address, we see that all kinds of measures, relief measures, and I find them all amazing. So one of them said that this government will subsidize the price of rice and sugar to consumers. This has been happening for eons. And a whole host of other things, increased in civil service pay negotiated by the United Workers' Party, a way of import duty for traveling officers, nothing new. Funding of the creative industry is nothing new. The cushioning of consumers from the full impact of rising fuel prices, nothing new. The prioritizing of the payment of tax refunds, this has been a promise that's broken. Providing grants and self-loans to funding micro small businesses, nothing new. So this is why I cannot support, as I take my seat, you're out of time. Yes. As I take my seat, Mr. President, I cannot in any good conscience support. Senator, you're out of time. Leader of government business. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, considering the time, I beg to move that stand in order, 353 being booked to allow the Senate to proceed beyond the hours of 6 p.m. What's standing order, did you say, sir? 353. That's, I mean, 93. Sorry, 93. There you go. The Senate has the question is that the standing order 93 be suspended to enable the Senate to sit beyond the prescribed time of 6 o'clock in the afternoon. I now put the question, as many as are of that opinion, say I. As many as are of country opinion, say no. I think the eyes of it, the eyes of it. Leave is granted. You may proceed. Senator Reynolds. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I rise to make my contribution to the appropriation bill. But before I delve into this presentation, Mr. President, please allow me a moment to extend sincere congratulations and best wishes to the most reverent Gabriel Malzé, who was installed as Bishop of Castries on April 24th at the minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. I'm very excited for our church, the Catholic Church in St. Lucia, because I know, Mr. President, the son of the soil has returned home with much to offer the flock. And I know that because, Mr. President, he taught me a thing or two. And many other youth leaders in Babuno as well. So I am grateful for what he taught me, and I wish him every success. I want to echo my voice to Senator Joahir, who welcomed the youth parliamentarians. And I want to encourage them and wish them well in the budget, in the debate next week, Wednesday and Thursday. I want to encourage the solution population to view and, of course, the parents and colleagues to come in to the gallery to support them based on the numbers that would be allowed, of course. I want to very quickly wish a happy 100th birthday to my neighbor, Ms. Naomi Luisi, and, of course, Mr. Lawrence Albert of Tishime, who's counting down the days for his 100th birthday. There's something about Babuno 100 years, Mr. President. So I am excited, Mr. President. These are exciting times. Though it's tough times, they're exciting times. Why am I excited, Mr. President? The policy address of the honorable Prime Minister. There's something in this address, in the policy statement of the Prime Minister, for every inclusion. And I congratulate the honorable Prime Minister and Minister for Finance for considering everybody took moons in all constituencies and communities will be impacted by this budget, Mr. President. St. Lucian's sons and daughters will be impacted. Their lives will be touched, transformed even. And, Mr. President, as a graduate of Seawheal, as a member of Parliamericas and Commonwealth Parliaments, I put on my gender lens to look through the budget. And, of course, to see what is in there for women, what is in there for men. But I'm focusing a lot on the women of this country because the women of this country have felt the brunt of a pain through COVID. They have lost a lot, loved ones. They have lost their jobs in the tourism sector, et cetera. And so now the budget, the policy statement, the plans, the programs must respond to that and give and cushion the women of this country. So I put on my gender lens, having graduated, Mr. President. And, of course, I look at the first one. I'm looking at social support. I'm starting with page 44, reinstating the distress fund, needs no explanation, we're moving on. Because, Mr. President, the good book says, whatsoever you do to the list of my brothers. And, of course, the budget, the appropriation bill, the policy statement, it's not about boasting for any leader of any country. It's not to boast, but it's to touch the people of the country. It's to touch lives. Here's the politics may happen, people boast. But really and truly, Mr. President, this is not about boasting, but it's about doing. It's about giving and supporting the people of this country who need most more than anything. Increasing the number of home care givers. And study was conducted about the home care givers a few months ago. And the information revealed that there is a need for more home care givers to be employed around the country. And so the government has been fitting to put that in place, to increase the number of home care givers. That will impact single women, single mothers, because they have to go out to work and they are caring for the elderly parents. So when there is an increase in the number of caregivers, they can go out to earn a living, take care of their children, and take care of the elderly parents. That's the government with a conscience. Page 47, MSME soft loan grant program, the micro, small, medium-sized businesses, loans and technical assistance given for over 800 registered small businesses will be that have been affected by COVID. This will again impact women across the country. And it's not only on paper, and I think I heard the independent senators allude to that earlier. It's about the implementation, but it's also for the women and men of these countries to access those facilities. Get to know what is available and be present physically to get what is there for you. Whether it's new, whether it's not new, this doesn't matter. What matters is that it impacts the people who need it the most. So women are getting back to work. They're getting back to earning, employing, and taking care of their families. And women too, if they're not earning in excess of $2,025, they may not pay taxes come January 2023. Page 48 of the economic recovery of youth and women, the vocational skills training offered in the areas of health aid, hospitality, creative entrepreneurship, early childhood development aid. And you know what more, Mr. President? The tuition is paid for them. They get a stipend, and they also receive a certificate. A brilliant package for the women of this country and the young people of this country. And I heard the members opposite talking about young people that unemployment rate, but here are the plans, the programs, and policies to respond to unemployment. What more? You cannot just give people fish. You teach them how to fish. You create the avenues for them. This is what a good and effective government does. You don't have to tout it. You just put it in there. You don't have to come and boast about it. You put it in there, and you make sure your technical people implement. And your MPs go out and inform however way possible of what is available. Let's move on. Page 48 of the budget address, the document. Wise women in sustainable exports. We're talking about agro processors, artisans, craft, COVID and textile. They are being encouraged to work with export Saint Lucien. So, Mr. President, as you traverse the north and south east and west of this country, you see some beautiful pieces of work. When the Taiwan is along with the Ministry of Commerce has this massive exhibition. You see that. You see crystallized of her bags and so on. You see membet. You see the jewelry. You see things. I mean, I could afford all this if I could afford out by all beautiful pieces. And we need to open up the avenues, open up the ways that I can export. And our women, our craft people can get more for their creative work. Page 30, pages 30 to 33, Mr. President. I am excited about agriculture. I see good support in the areas of agriculture. I see potential for women to get involved. I see CMOS, B-City, Cocos, sector agro processors. You name it, I see, and I'm excited. Mr. Speaker, I want green because green means our principles to have information. Teachers, I stand with the teachers forever, forever. All of us around this room at some point have been an educator. As a little out of order, if I'm to make that statement about teachers not having this respectful to teachers. So I am an educator and I'm proud to be so. Senator Polius had much to say about agriculture, even thinking, making it to the point of thinking about the appointment of the minister out of order. Just unacceptable and sad. But let me remind Senator Polius and her colleagues about the attack on the marketing board. The no bananas to France. The battling with NFTO members for chairmanship of the organization and threatening no support to them after windfresh all the NFTO and government being a shareholder of NFTO, not wanting to pay them because you want chairmanship or NFTO. Privatizing the agro processing plant in France or Barbano, after we had invested so much in equipment, then they put out the women out of the agro processing plant and loaned it to a private citizen. Your medicine, Madam Nadoa, if you buy a moon set and $80,000 in debt to Lucille, like for the big building, the agro processing plant, and they squeeze up the ladies in a little building on the side and they have the audacity to have the formal opening and COVID came and you can have only one to women in the other time. This is how the women of Barbana have been treated by the minister, former of agriculture. And so the senator need to have an information right. The minister for agriculture presently found the banana industry in this area and he did the following. He implemented a four million support package to NFTO, which was promised by the previous government, but never delivered. He expanded market access to the Northern Caribbean. He's working with NFTO and farmers to revive the UK market. There was a cabinet appointed banana task force to reorganize the industry. When the PM advised us to eat fig, some of them tried to make fun of it, it thought it funny, but the Anglican church took it seriously, they held an exhibition. And tomorrow I want to invite senator Ferriero, to come to the constitution park tomorrow. There is a banana expo hosted by the minister of agriculture, where there will be recipe and products of banana on display in constitution park. So come tomorrow, there's more going on with bananas. The government appointed a consultant to review the operations on NFTO. A small unit was set up to manage a black sticker to go again. Every time this minister is in agriculture, black sticker to go takes over the banana industry. So again, there was closure of the banana productivity improvement project, BP, your family. So the minister had to set up a unit to manage again, black sticker to go. And the senators spoke about fertilizer and a little disingenuous, I think. If you're talking about the cost of fertilizer, be honest, be honest. NFTO fertilizer, 25 kilograms a bag of 25 kilograms costing $80. In the private sector though, it's $104. Why come in the house and give this room? I don't want to say it's a lie, but come on now. Under 50 kilograms, the NFTO is $160, but the private sector is $208. Let us make sure we give the correct information. It doesn't pay to give incorrect information, whether it's deliberate or not. Continuing, Mr. President, Page 37 speaks of the street lighting replacement project. It has been reinstated with LED bulbs, 25,000 bulbs being set up in this country. And I am very grateful for that because it complements the CCTV cameras that the government is planning to set up in the country, in the city, to monitor our streets. And like I said, Mr. President, I put on my gender lens with CCTV cameras, with better lighting. You know what that means for women? Women and girls who have worked late need to get the bus. They can walk through the streets of car streets and other areas without fare. And because, you know, this week we remembered Valerie Lord, what happened to her, she was murdered. So we need the lights and we need the CCTV. So I am very grateful to the prime minister and this government for planning to set up the CCTVs in this country, in the city, and the LED bulbs because women, we can walk, we can drive a little easier with these lights, better lights. And of course, the business owners in the city, a lot of them being women, they have complained, you see them on the media, they complain because people break into their businesses, their bars, their restaurants, even the nail spaces they're breaking into still. So the lighting, it will help secure the business places of our women, our men, our young people. We continue, Mr. President, page 39 of the budget address to the prime minister. Speaking about housing, again, with my gender lens, I look at how it will impact single mothers with the children, families, young couples who do not have the means to get homes that cost a lot more. The government is stepping in with 40 new lots in the south and 150 service lots island wide. I say, in the midst of turbulent waters, in the midst of rough waves, something is wounding, something is coming through for families, some things are coming through for women, some things are coming through for young couples, married couples, some things are coming through for children, as alluded earlier by my colleagues. The proud program being revitalized in castries and viewforts, over 1,400 families to benefit, they will get ownership of the land. Mr. President, doesn't the opposition understand what it means to a St. Lucian man or woman to have title to the land? When they can walk into a bank and get a loan for the children to study or to buy a vehicle or to do something to start a small business, to do something for themselves, don't they understand how empowering this is to the average St. Lucian? They don't understand it because where we come from, we understand it. We understand it. When you have people squatting on family land and there's a whole set of riots to get something in your hand, we understand it. And so I stand with those families and I stand with the government and I say bravo to the prime minister and the cabinet of ministers for thinking about the people of this country. And I can't wait for the Paris lands in Talvan to have it sorted out once and for all. In page 26, we speak of the orange economy. It deals with culture, creativity of St. Lucian's sons and daughters. Something that some people here would not know anything about. Visual, performing and literary arts. The opportunities must be created, Mr. President, for training to be given to our artists. It is needed. We need provision for open spaces, for performances, exhibitions, readings, book launches. Mr. President, I mean, you travel, we all travel and we see it. I mean, my little time in Kenya, I was in awe. When you just drive around and see some piece of artwork in the middle of nowhere, just beautiful and we have them right here. Even in the secondary schools, you can see the children posting their work. Give them the spaces to show off their creativity. Give them the spaces, give them the time, give them the avenues to do so. So through the orange economy, every community should have an open space where the children can perform, can do an exhibition, can do something. Every community. But I think, Mr. President, the cultural development foundation needs to be better organized to manage arts and culture. That's the arm, the government's arm in arts and culture. There needs to be development and growth and I think we need to do a little more work in there. And as, yes, I am a senator on the government side, but when I think we are being honest and we've been open and we support our government and we give ideas, that's what it's all about. Because at the end of the day, we are all St. Lucians and we want to see the best for our country. Just like I heard the independent senators, giving the suggestion, giving the ideas, it's not about coming to bash, but you can see if there is an area you think something needs to be done, say it. So I look forward to the activation of the Walcott and Sessons houses. The Walcott house on the grass street area and Sessons house, it's a museum actually, Mr. President. I visited there and I was in awe. There's so much, there's too much, and the space is too small. We need to do something about Sessons house and we need, and I know the MP will find a way to get visitors, not only visitors from outside of St. Lucia or Torres, but I mean St. Lucian children who are students of culture and art. Take them to Sessons house and let them see what it is about our culture. Let us get that pride and joy back in our people of who we are and where we want to go. So I want to see the, I look forward to activating Walcott and Sessons houses. And I want to praise the Walcott family. They donated the library, his library to the Sahara Lois Community College. So it's now the Derrick Walcott library established. Bravo to the family. And so there is need for, and I think one of the senators spoke to it earlier about the city of castries and during the lunch break we were talking about when your parents would tell you they're taking you to town. I mean, this was a vibe, a feeling. When you go into castries, you're going to see things, you're going to eat things, you're just being in castries with a beautiful vibe, beautiful feeling. And so we have to do something for our young people and they will not just sit on the blocking castries, but they'll find something to do. And so we look at the national museums, national as gallery. What's about the old government country? What's about the old education, means your education building just up the street? Our children, our visitors to the city, apart from the minor Basilica and Walcott house, what else is there for them to visit around the city? So we need to do a little more as we talk about the orange economy and the cultural development foundation. Page 53 speaks to tax reform, Mr. President. And the Prime Minister and his wisdom indicated that effective January 2023, people earning up to $2,023 monthly will pay no income tax. So public servants raise one to five and a lot of them are women within that bracket as well. And so single mothers, women who work caring for the elderly, caring for their children, caring for their children with disabilities, caring for the men and power, all who earn about a little over $2,000 will pay no income tax. Smaller things, Mr. President, it's a relief. That is what we're looking at. These are turbulent times and to the government I'll be able to give large pieces, but small. Page 54, tax refund. Almost $2,000 sentencing received their refunds. Almost 1,000 people got $1,000 and above in these COVID times, in these times of war and costly products. Getting a check for $1,000 can go a long way for a family. And I can tell you, Mr. President, I just helped a young lady whose husband's past was a farmer and the SLBC will pay now dividends for shareholders and she got the $725 and the lady sent a message on my phone. It was heartbreaking to hear the way she gave thanks for that amount. She said it is smaller, but it is significant. So every little bit counts for the people of this country. Everyone is impacted. There has been no borrowing. So much has been done for the people of this country in the nine months. I have a question for the prime minister. How did you do it? How did he do it? Amazing, steady, his hand being steady through turbulent times. But so much more will be done, Mr. President, so much more will be done. I have faith in the prime minister's ability to do more for the people of this country. I move back to pages 11 and 12. We speak about COVID-19. And the prime minister spoke to the challenge of trying to manage a deadly Delta variant and keep the economy afloat. We all know that vaccination is the key strategy to fighting COVID. We encountered the Delta, the Alpha, the immigrant variants in St. Lucia. The former government borrowed over $300 million as of July 2021. Million dollars. And we are not alone. Just always. Who is going to serve the people of this country to fight COVID? We have tried to do this, but we can't do it. I want to know. But I want to know anyway. I want to know how many people are in this country, even if we are from the other side. I am not from the other side. I am from the other side. So, Mr. President, I am saying to you, we do not know how it was used, but it was borrowed. $300 million. And when I hear we speak and we say, the government borrowed this, or the government doesn't have to pay this, and the government, it's not that the government is doing it, it's not the government's money. It's taxpayer's money. It's the people of this country. We speak like we're in a vacuum there as a government. We did this. No. It's taxpayers are responsible for repairing the lawns. I just want to get it. Page 17 of the Social and Economic Review 2021 indicates that through the COVAX facility, that's through WHO, we were able to procure vaccines plus getting donations from friendly governments through WHO PAHU. Friendly governments like India, USA, Argentina, Spain, Taiwan, even Barbados. We got AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, we got the boosters you need. Vaccines are available now at all wellness centers. So, if all this good was happening with vaccines, so many friendly governments donated COVAX through WHO and PAHU, if all of this was happening, there was vaccine resistance at the time, Mr. President. Why did Prime Minister Fum make this advance payment of seven million dollars to an unknown entity who has no medical background? Mr. President, I was one time Minister for Health and all our pharmaceuticals are procured through the OECS. The OECS countries come together, we purchase by bulk, and we have pharmacists who are employed with OECS, and they had to go through and look at the different medications, interview the PN, because we made sure we couldn't bring anything to our people. But, Mr. President, when I have seven million being given to someone who's in business cement or what have you, Mr. President, irresponsible, who knows what kind of it that was vaccinatural to bring to this country? On behalf of the people, that's the kind of decisions we had the former administration taking on behalf of us, our health and wellness. Mr. President, data from the epidemiology unit as of April 24th indicated that the age groups, okay, we had 368 deaths, the age groups 0 to 49%, 15 to 24, 15%, 25 to 49 years, 52%, and 50 plus 24%. And so we need to consider the families who have lost loved ones amidst the call to transform our economy, empowering our people, brilliant. I wish to humbly endorse the call for special events, whether it be a service of light, to remember those souls, the people who have gone through COVID, the people who departed during COVID due to COVID. The average age, 67 years, the males 65 to 67, and the females 85 plus. So we lost younger males and older females. But the service is not for those who have passed, but for those who continue to grieve. We must help them along the grieving and healing process. As a student of psychology, I think the emotional, psychological and spiritual strength will help them. Husbands, fathers, uncles, grandparents, aunts, children. Senator, you have 15 minutes left to conclude your presentation. Thank you very much. I shall finish within time, Mr. President. So as we get our economy back on track, let us hold a special service to help heal broken spirits and bring help bring closure. Page 43, universal health care. Under thrown speech, page 6, so both the governor, his Excellency and the prime minister spoke to commencing the implementation of universal health coverage. The minister for finance indicated that it will begin with a fund of $6.4 million. His Excellency stated that universal health coverage will be underpinned by the principles of universality, accessibility, affordability and equity. This was music to my ears. But unfortunately, just two nights ago, the former prime minister in his address to the nation said about universal health care, and I quote, it's not going to work. We are unable to afford it. And yet he proposed a health insurance card coverage, $75,000 per person per year. And I said to myself, and I'm saying it here, the prime minister former should have used those same words when the SH came up to say, we cannot afford it. He should have said that then. When the new shell came to build this big, this shell for St. Jude Hospital, he should have said we cannot afford it. When carbon approach, we had no money to get land, he should have said we cannot afford it. When the hotel got the $24 million of the St. Lucian people's money, he should have said we cannot afford it. We cannot afford it translates in my mind that's too much money to spend on St. Lucian's. That is how I interpret it. It's too much money to spend on St. Lucian's for the UHC. UHC is too good for St. Lucian's. OK, it was too good for St. Lucian's. St. Jude was too good for St. Lucian's. The Diabetes Center was too good for St. Lucian's. Let me clarify, Mr. President, national health insurance does not represent universal health coverage. Many developing countries like Thailand, Mexico, and Brazil, they have successfully implemented. I remember you were not to use the type of language in this house. It proceeds. Very unfortunate. Many developing countries have successfully implemented universal health coverage using different mechanisms. The St. Lucian Labour Party has proposed one such model. Universal health coverage aims to take responsibility for improving the health and well-being of individuals and populations. It's not just about insurance and paying. Everyone gets the same level of care. It leads to a healthier workforce and longer life expectancy. Universal health coverage requires a system that includes trained staff, data collection, governance and management system, working together, construction and maintenance of suitable buildings, catering for all ages across the life course, addressing the determinants of health and wellness and ill health and unhealthiness. For example, it encompasses health promotion, the health fairs, and doing, taking people's pressures in the community, prevention strategies, early diagnosis, cost-effective intervention and access to services. Insurance don't deal with that. Insurance don't deal with that. They don't deal with health promotion. They don't deal with prevention strategies. Universal health coverage deals with that. So we want the entire package for the people of St. Lucian. And by God, Mr. President, we deserve it. After what they have been through, they deserve it. All the good things for the people of this country, we deserve it. So people who come from other countries, they can go get UHC, but we're going to give it to our St. Lucian people. Universal health coverage will target clients individually, families and communities in self-management. We will come together as a nation to protect health together. We will contribute to a fund we can all access. So together we'll put our funds in one and we will access this fund to benefit and benefit from this fund. Former PM spoke about $75,000 per person for a year. Who benefits from this arrangement? This is unrealistic. It amounts to $12.7 billion, which grossly exceeds even our national budget of $9.8 billion. I just said this approach is designed to extract monies from our population, to enrich the interests of profitors, the companies, but not the health and well-being of our people. We have the human resource. We have the people with knowledge, the technical skills who are right here in this country and who can make an excellent contribution to universal health coverage. So I submit that, Mr. President. And as a clue, St. Jude Hospital on page 22, the St. Jude Hospital Project. The Prime Minister indicated that work will commence this year to complete the St. Jude Hospital Project and it will be commissioned within a reasonable time. Work on St. Jude stopped in September 2016. The former administration commission a report, $1 million almost they paid for it. Nobody has seen it. Nobody has read it. It has never been tabled in any house, not upper, not lower. Nobody has seen it officially, started a new building that cost the people of St. Lucia. You have something to say, Mr. President? If the Honorable one wants to stand, I can sit. Proceed, proceed. Thank you. I think a little manners would go a long way. Started a new building, $118 million, demolished two buildings that cost the people of St. Lucia, $7 million. Presently, the stadium is a bigger hazard to the people. It's a hazard for the patients, for staff, for visitors alike. Mr. President, it's a quick check. Then we got the money that St. Jude has exchanged for St. Lucia. In these countries where we live we have been highly educated to exploit millions and millions of dollars that will be wasted to save the people of St. Lucia and to come back to St. Lucia with workers and staff. It's not good if St. Lucia could At my turn, Prime Minister Avandi used to serve for GIA to do medical, university medical. So the guy buy only call point 3 and send Jude, except send Jude left. So they would give it to a new school, a medical school, but we have Spartan, we have IAU in viewport, so I don't know why we want to bring in a medical school and give them our send Jude, and so, and build a shell. I agree totally with the Prime Minister, somebody must account for mismanaging, wasting, abusing the country's limited resources. Mr. President, as I close, I wish to reiterate my support for the appropriation bill because the people of St. Lucia deserve every dollar, every cent that have been budgeted for them. They deserve every plan, every program, every project conceived and to be implemented to impact their lives. They deserve a special memorial service in honour of those that they have lost. Mr. President, St. Lucia deserve to exhale after almost five and a half years of an apartheid kind of a system, an apartheid, a style of governance, many atrocities that they experience. It is time for St. Lucia to exhale. This bill, when it comes into effect, will achieve this, Mr. President. It is time for St. Lucia to rise up, step forward and access all the offerings of this bill. And I wish to wish all the mothers of this country happy and blessed Mother's Day on Sunday. And I say, happy appropriation bill day to us in the province. Thank you. Either of government business. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you, Officer. Mr. President, before I attempt to respond to the deliberations today to meet me, to do something that I should have done from morning and acknowledge and thank the youth parliamentarians who were here, but also to acknowledge another young person who in my eyes is a pride, has brought me a lot of pride and joy when I see him in uniform performing his duties here. And I'm referring to the officer who is now assisting us, Officer Deiland Jules, you may not know, but was a student of mine and I am so proud to see him come through. You will not begin to understand the challenges that he had and it pleases me when our system can help to bring through gentlemen like him who can serve us with dignity and respect. So I'm happy to be in the same chamber with Officer Jules. Mr. President, I didn't think I would even need the lectern in my rebuttal, but there's so much content, so much content provided today that I will try to be brief, but I had to take some time to reflect and take some notes. I will attempt to respond to some of the very salient comments raised by our two independent senators that I think can be seen as helpful in our deliberations as we go forward. But before I do so, Mr. President, it's sad that the senator Polius has left, but I want to respond first to get that out of the way to some of what I heard from the other two independent senators. I want to also thank my colleague government senators who eloquently and ably provided details and support for the appropriations bill today. I'm reminded that I'm blessed among the women of Labour, but I'm very proud of their presentations today and I thank them for that. Mr. President, let me begin first by taking a look at some of what was shared with us from Honourable Stanislas, who I thought was very, you know, he had some energy in his presentation, but I didn't lose sight of the points that were made and I noted that he was particularly intrigued with the budget speech of the Honourable Prime Minister. In fact, credit to him, he stuck to the appropriations bill and he stuck to the Prime Minister's budget speech. But while he was referring to it and attempting to find the flaws, I couldn't help but notice how intrigued he was and I had to ask him whether it was a nice read because I think he was thoroughly enjoying the content of that document. And so I thank him for the unspoken word. He rarely seemed – so I invite him when he goes home later to have a second read. I think he will have a very good night's sleep. Mr. President, I noted that the member implied that St. Lucians were fooled. They were fooled when they got the Labour Party into government. But Mr. President, I want to remind the member that St. Lucians, including himself and all of us, we are not fools. It was the intelligence, the consciousness, the ability to discern that caught St. Lucians to make that decision on July 26 to return the St. Lucian Labour Party into government. And I am proud of the decision that the St. Lucians and ourselves made. Mr. President, while just after nine months the last government has paid the price for the way in which they managed this country and treated our people, I would have expected that at the first opportunity in an appropriations debate that the posture of the opposition, the now opposition, would have been one of reflection so that they could have picked up on the errors that they have made having had a loss of 15 to 2 to reflect and say, look, we've got to come back and come back better. But instead, Mr. President, what we've seen in the last few days from the lower house and now in the Senate is convincing me that they have continued to boast and gloat and be arrogant in the way they approach the issues and they haven't learnt. And I also noted the persistent tapping of the tables, not in the way that we're used to, to the extent that the deputy president had to ask for a bit of mercy for the desks. And I realised that we will need those desks. And I remind the opposition that we will need those desks because they're going to be needing it for a very, very, very long time. So please don't damage the furniture, particularly my colleague Honourable Leader of Opposition, Mr. President, the Honourable, sorry, the Senator Stanislas made a reference to the COVID situation and attempted to say that we were blaming the government for not managing the COVID and now we have the same issue. I just want to remind him that as my colleagues have said, the situation with COVID is fluid and it has changed. And at the time, we were dealing with a Delta variant that was deadly and it was costing us lives almost daily. Right now, COVID has evolved, the whole situation is different. We're now dealing with Omicron. And we also have a situation where the COVID pandemic has been better managed by this government that has allowed us to be able to manoeuvre and to reopen this country with confidence with lower risks and better returns. Mr. President, I listened as the member used the term balance in lives and livelihoods. And I thank him for saying so because he has properly adopted a phrase that came from this side of the house, from the St. Lucia Labour Party at the time. When their Prime Minister, let me remind him in his own words what the Prime Minister then said. What's the point of saving lives if there are no livelihoods? That's what his leader said. And that led to us having to say, no, we need to balance lives and livelihoods. It's not one or the other. So that attempt, Mr. President, will not work in this Honourable Senate. We are paying attention. So we have never provided or advanced the argument that it's either lives or livelihoods. We have advanced the argument that it's lives and livelihoods and we must balance. And I thank him for now being able to actually say so in his own words. Mr. President, I now move to some of the points that were raised by the leader of opposition business. Mr. President, I noticed that the leader of opposition business has missed a great opportunity. This is a 45-minute period that the leader of the opposition business has, unlike his leader, decided to make use of. But I was hoping that he would have used it wisely and taken the opportunity to deliberate, divulge, and really do some proper criticism and analysis of this budget debate. But instead, the opportunity was totally wasted, totally wasted, Mr. President, in trying to find fish for ideas, fish for things to hit on. And in his fishing, he actually dealt or tried to delve a blow in the area of fisheries and tried to infer that the fishermen were not the Prime Minister made no mention of any relief for fishermen when it comes to the fuel taxes. Mr. President, I could have stood on a point of order then, but I decided not to interrupt the Honourable Senator. And I saved it for this moment. So here I will, at this point, draw the attention to Senator Fede to page 34 of the Prime Minister's budget speech that I see him holding in his hand up to now. Does he still have it? I really invite him to look at it. And let me read the section. Senator Fede had inferred that there was no relief in the form of taxes for the fishermen. And he wants the relief. Well, let me just read page 34, paragraph 3. And I quote, government still intends to honour the removal of the additional $1.50 tax on fuel for fisherfolk when the market conditions permit. That is the crux of the matter. Let me finish. This year, I'm not finished. I need some protection. Senator, please have regard to Standing Order 41. Please allow the senator to make his presentation with that interruption, unless you're standing at the point of order. I appreciate the protection. So let me read from the top, because I want to read the entire piece. It's just two sentences. Government still intends to honour the removal of the additional $1.50 tax on fuel for fisherfolk when market conditions permit. This year, fishers will benefit from concessions available under the Agricultural and Fisheries Incentives 21 Bill. Mr. President, this senator was attempting to make it seem as if this government had nothing in place for fishermen. And I just wanted to, as we say in our local palace, do a little bit of demati in that regard. But I took my time and I waited. Mr. President, I noted that there was a very offensive statement made, and again, I resisted the temptation to stand. And now I want to draw the attention of the leader of opposition business to something that I thought was offensive. During his presentation, I think he was making a point about the origin of an airline coming into St. Lucia in the 90s. And referred to me as then being a teacher, so I was not supposed to know about it. Mr. President, that kind of posture is offensive, because I have been a teacher for more than 25 years, and I was very proud to be a teacher. And most of us in this honorable house, most of us in this country who have served at the highest level, who are teachers, and teachers, teachers form the basis for our total development in this country. And to suggest that because I was a teacher in the 90s, which I was, that I was not, I didn't know, I was not supposed to know about what was going on. I found it really offensive, and I hope that the, I think it's disrespectful, and I hope that the senator finds some time to apologize to all teachers of St. Lucia for what he just said. Our teachers are waiting and listening. You should be very careful. I thought you should have stuck to the appropriations bill as advised by you, honorable president. Mr. President, I think it was also the teachers who helped in the efforts who were bright and smart, who contributed to us being in government today. The teachers did. They voted. Mr. President, I stand before you. The Honorable Member is misleading the House. Excuse me. Excuse me. Allow me to acknowledge you first, before you start speaking. What do you stand on, sir? The Member is misleading the House. What, what point of order, what, what, on what section of the standing order do you stand on? Well, Mr. President, I didn't know that you wanted a specific number, but I can tell you. No, you need, you need to identify. Mr. President, it is quite clear for the rules of engagement and the debate. Every single member is called upon in the standing order to ensure that they speak the truth. Senator. I am not saying that teachers. Senator. I am to be heard in silence. And you will allow me to speak. Now you rose. Okay? Under what standing order are you rising? You are not telling me. Senator. Senator. Senator, we will conduct our business according to the standing orders. And if you rise, if you rise on a standing order, you will tell us what specifically are you, do you take issue with? And if you cannot do that, then this is not a standing order. Okay? You may proceed. Senator, this is the last time. I will not entertain the disrespect. And the disobedience to the rules of this house. You may proceed. Thank you, Mr. President. And sometimes, you know, we say things, but the actions speak much louder. And there is an example of what I was saying. The member again being disrespectful in this house, just as he disrespected teachers. Mr. President, if I may move on to another point that was made. I noticed that the Honourable, sorry, the, it's not Honourable at all. It's the Senator made, spent a better part of his 45-minute allocation, trying to do what I considered claim to fail. Taking, trying to take credit. That's all he tried to do. Trying to take credit for the achievements that we have made in tourism and in other sectors. Mr. President, although he did a very lousy job, he also admitted that our former President, our present Minister of Tourism, did in his discussions about the return of Virgin Atlantic, did acknowledge what the previous government had done. And we on this side will continue to acknowledge what anyone else had done, even if, even if we didn't start it. We are not in the business of dismissing or stopping things because we didn't start it. So if there was a foundation built, we will build on it. And we are not afraid to see that this person has started that and I'm going to build on it. So his attempt to take credit, Mr. President, was a total waste of the Parliament's time. Mr. President, reference was made to $140 million that Senator Fede claimed was that the government had earned in revenue and that he had asked, what are we doing with all this money? Mr. President, let me remind the senator that coming into government, we now have to be faced with what I consider incurring, debt incurred by his government of $186 million to pay for DFCs. And I have to double check the figure before I stood and said it. $186 million, Mr. President, that our government is saddled with because his government at the time in office went on a DFC rampage that is exceeding by almost $46 million the revenue, the total revenue that we have made in the nine months. So if we had to spend money on DFCs alone, we would still be in a negative $46 million position. So Mr. President, here is the situation. We have inherited a situation that is difficult because it was induced by the Honourable, by the senator and his government. But we will not stay here and cry about it. We will move on and we will work and we will get it settled. Mr. President, finally, I do not want to spend the entire evening on the senator, but I have to make reference to a statement that he made in reference to the constituency that he represented in the last five years. Referring to Ancelere Canaries, and I hope he is listening, if his colleague can ask him to at least pay attention to what is happening in the Senate, he made reference to Ancelere as the neglected village. Mr. President, can you imagine a member who was the parliamentary representative of a constituency only nine months ago is standing in the Senate and referring to the constituency as a neglected village? A neglected village, Mr. President. So who did the neglecting? You were the parliamentary representative and I do not assert myself by speaking loudly. I speak the truth. I do not stammer it. I speak the truth. And you know, I do not have to make noise to say it. He stood in this house and said that Ancelere Canaries or Ancelere is a neglected village. That is the constituency. He was just with it. And now I understand why the Canaries and Ancelere people have put him on the outside of the house, Mr. President. Mr. President, I think what he should have done instead was to ask his prime minister to spend the $7 million that was used to procure the vaccines that we still haven't received on Ancelere Canaries to improve the situation, the social situation, and so that he would not have to stand here today and refer to that constituency as a neglected constituency. But the people of St. Lucia have spoken and every day we come here we understand better why he is on this side. Mr. President. I want to advise one more thing to the member of Ancelere Canaries. And this one, I'm sorry, Mr. President, is not directly associated with the bill, but since it's a behavior that he exhibited, I think he should try to get a better night's sleep before he comes to sit at the Senate, so that I don't have to sit on this side of the house and hear him yawning out loudly in the parliament. I think this is distasteful and this is disrespectful. Mr. President, let me move on to more constructive responses. I now take a look at some of the comments that were made by Senator Polius. Senator Polius, in her presentation, Mr. President, she made reference to two areas, mainly education and agriculture. She had a strong emphasis, like almost all other senators in this room, on the importance of education. I think both independent senators and quite a few of us made reference to education. And Mr. President, it was very sad that the issue of laptops came back. What is this opposition's preoccupation with laptops? What is it that they find so wrong about laptops? Mr. President, it was the former Minister for Education who stated in reference to laptops, and we now know where that statement landed her, because the Miku North constituents responded in the way that most of them never expected. And so the Guilty Party is now part of the 15 parliamentarians who did not regain their seats. So I think St. Lucien's have spoken. And the argument to continue to compare laptops to e-books, I think we should put that to rest. I think my colleagues have properly dealt with that, so I will not waste our time on it. Mr. President, with regard to this Arthur Lewis Community College becoming a university college, that issue was blamed on the Labour Party. I want to remind the opposition that it was under their watch that St. Lucien missed an opportunity to have our fourth campus of the UE in St. Lucien, and Antigua profited the opportunity. So if we were serious about tertiary education in St. Lucien, we would have seized the opportunity to make the University of the West in this newest campus to have St. Lucien take that opportunity. We fell asleep, we didn't take it, and now we want to talk about Arthur Lewis. Mr. President, finally, on the matter of the issues raised by Senator Polius, there was a very strong emphasis on bananas and farmers, and she spoke in Creole on that, so I will respond in like manner. She was asking about what we were doing for the farmers and we wanted to give them, they wanted inputs and so on, and all I have to say to her in response to that is that after, let me tell you Mr. President, after these bananas turned to France, they turned that, Mr. President, and then just after the bananas turned to France, that's when we got the answer, and then you went, you went, all that you had done, the party was there, and then bananas to France, just after that, that's when we got the answer. I don't see the only way to make the farmers laugh. We have to keep the situation in place so that we can keep the market and the European market. So bananas to France take care of that. The cost of fertilizer and all of those things that were mentioned, Mr. President, I think they might have a better answer from the former Minister for Agriculture who failed to be able to make those inputs cost effective for the farmers. And I'm not surprised that they didn't because they didn't think that the farmers could have managed $1500. Let's get about that. Mr. President, allow me now to refer to some of the comments and some of the observations made by the two independent senators. First of all, I want to thank them for raising the issues they did in a very eloquent, disciplined, and mature manner, unlike what happened on this side. Mr. President, some of the issues raised are critical, and crime was one of them. I noted that Senator Aziz referred to a number of issues that I consider social issues, crime, education, and healthcare. And correctly he noted that if we're going to spend $120 million, it must be well spent. I agree, and I believe instead that we shouldn't just look at the dollar value, but we should also look at the way in which the dollars are spent. The value for the dollar or the value for money. And we should take a holistic approach towards dealing with the roots of crime in terms of life skills, soft skills that are reflected in the Prime Minister's budget speech and make that money work better. He also referred to issues of conflict resolution that I believe were articulated also in the primary school curriculum. So I assure him that our government is going to pay attention to the issues that contribute to crime and solve it in a holistic manner. So I thank him for these observations. He also mentioned participation, which is a very important attribute of government succeeding. I want to tell him that the Labour Party government has demonstrated that at the highest level, because we have incorporated into our government two parliamentarians who did not run on the Labour Party ticket, and our government is a reflection of a government of inclusion. We are not afraid to work with people who have of like minds and similar interests to bring our country forward. We embrace the issues that will come up from those we consider as those sectors that they represent, that the independent senators represent, the corporate Saint Lucia, our civil society and all of those. They have a very important contribution and I believe that when the independent senators speak in the Senate, they also represent the views of these sectors. I want to also refer to Senator Lee's contributions. He did welcome the endorsement of the Strengthening the TVET program and I'm happy that he recognized that. And that is part of the new mandate by this government to include vocational studies as part of the education portfolio. I also noted that he made reference to something he called academically inclined. He was an ex-student of St. Mary's College and I can understand why that statement was made. I want to assure him that as an educator, we have almost dispelled of that myth of what we call academically inclined. All children can learn and there is no such thing as academically inclined in the language of educators. What we do is that we don't teach subjects but we teach people and so every child can be academically inclined. You just have to find a way to teach them. And how are we going to address that? I think our parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Education ably referred to it when she outlined some of the plans that our government has in education. I will align myself with the integration and relevance of education that he made reference to to the market. That was a very important observation. Senator Lee and I thank him for that, Mr. President. It's very true that we cannot continue to educate and train people and when they are finished and they are certified, their certification and training is not relevant to what the market and what the country needs. So you'll have a situation of skilled persons that you cannot absorb into your workforce or you cannot create employment and help your economy grow. So I think that these observations are well thought of and I think that we as a government have decided that we are going to incorporate the business sector. We used to do it previously through the science fair to have schools aligned with businesses but I think there is further opportunity to do so with the small business and private sector through apprenticeship programs. Finally, Mr. President, I noted the issues that he raised regarding our monies locked in the banks and it is true that our banks are liquid and we must ensure that the government does not crowd out our local borrowers by trying to borrow too much from the same banks so we must also keep an eye on what is now referred to as fiscal rules, Mr. President. The IMF, the World Bank, if you listen, they are putting a lot of pressure on small island developing states. If they have to give you any loans, if you have to access funds from them, you have a whole lot of rules that you have to comply with and it makes it very difficult for us with the capacity that we have. So while we want to do so, we have to keep an eye on these fiscal rules. And finally, he mentioned being from the city, the issue of the castrate city, needing more life, I completely agree. I don't think we can deny that. But I think in the redevelopment of castries, whether it's through the ports, we have to find ways to integrate the rest of the business community to take advantage of these opportunities. There's one thing he said, Mr. President, that I want to disagree with. He said bananas is dead. I think that these were exact words. Yes, we agree that bananas is not green gold anymore. However, I want to say to the farmers of St. Lucia that bananas is not dead. Figla pamo, flabopi de tibalia plock mi pamo. Mr. President, I want to say that... Honourable Senator, you have ten minutes left. No, I won't even use so much, Mr. President. I'll wrap up in two minutes. Mr. President, I think that we have to recognise while we try to diversify, which is true, but a very high percentage of our households in this country still rely very heavily on the revenue from bananas. They do, and we cannot ignore them. So we have to be able to make the transition slowly and keep ensuring that we can provide them with a way to sell and to have a market for the bananas. It's not dead yet, Senator, through you, Mr. President, but I acknowledge the point that it's not what it used to be, and we have to be creative in the way that we diversify our agricultural sector. Mr. President, I want to thank all of the senators for their contributions. I don't think I missed out on anything. I think I touched on those I noted. I think this appropriations bill by our government and the Prime Minister's address has inspired us. You just have to ask the people on the ground, those people who are objective and think in the best interest of St. Lucia, and they will tell you that it's an inspiration. I want to congratulate him for that and thank all of our members, including the opposition, who found somehow to engage in discussion on the bill and look forward to the implementation that we have spoken about of the policies that are offered in this bill. I thank you, Mr. President. Senator, the question is that the appropriation 2022-2023 will be read a second time. I now put the question as many as are of that opinion. Say aye. Aye. As many as are of a contrary opinion. Say no. An act to provide for the services of the state of St. Lucia for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 2023. Honourable Leader of Government and Business. Mr. President, since this is a money bill, I beg to move that the Appropriations 2022-2023 bill be not committed to committee stage, understand another 65, and that the Appropriations Bill 2022-2023 be read a third time and passed. Senator, the question is that the Appropriations 2022-2023 bill be read a third time and passed. I now put the question as many as are of that opinion. Say aye. Aye. As many as are of a contrary opinion. Say no. I thank the eyes of it. The eyes of it. Be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the House of Assembly and the Senate of St. Lucia, and by the authority of the same as follows. This act may be cited as the Appropriations Act 2022-2023. Motion number two. Honourable Leader of Government and Business. Mr. President, I beg to move. I beg to present the following motion standing in my name. Whereas it is provided by section three of the National Savings and Development Bonds Act, Act 1525, that under the authority of the Parliament, the Minister responsible for finance be raised by issue of savings bonds inside and outside St. Lucia, money up to the amount of $2 billion, $400 million for financing of such capital or other expenditure, and for such debt financing as he or she determines. And whereas it is provided, it is further provided under section four of the National Savings and Development Bonds Act, Act 1525, that the bond shall be issued in such form and on such terms and conditions as the Minister responsible for finance directs. And whereas the Minister of Finance considers it necessary to raise the amount of EC $79,700,000 for financing the 2022-2023 budget at the amount of $655,800,000 for – that is, EC dollars – for refinancing existing debts. Be it resolved that Parliament authorizes the Minister of Finance to raise A, the amount of EC dollars $79,700,000 for the financing of the 2022-2023 budget, B, the amount of EC $655,800,000 for refinancing existing debts. Senator, the question is that Parliament authorizes the Minister of Finance to raise A, the amount of EC $79,700,000 for financing the 2022-2023 budget, B, the amount of EC $655,800,000 for financing existing debts. Leader, Senator Faday. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Boring. You know, very quickly or immediately after the passage of the appropriations bill, we're seeing two points which I'll make very briefly. The first point, Mr. President, and that is, Senator Finance, capital projects of many kinds to have the monies available, to spend in public works, public services, schools, roads, playing fields, hospitals, health centers, developing countries and so on. Borrowed, Mr. President, it must be debunked and it must be, it must, the Solution Labor Party Administration must stop as if governments anywhere in the world can exist without borrowing. It makes us sound very illiterate when we're going to borrow. We don't have the level of reserves that some countries, all rich countries in the world would have to suggest to the people or to imply that governments can run without loans to vilify when you're in opposition of government to say that they are borrowing and borrowing and borrowing is hypocritical. It is heresy, it is economic heresy, the great United States of America. They owe billions, trillions in government debt. Every government around the world sells bonds and raises money via bonds on the international marketplace. What is so special about St. Lucia? Are we living in some box by ourselves that all of a sudden we can run governments without borrowing as being the tone of the discussion by this administration? Now, interestingly, you're proposing to borrow some $505 million. If it's not the highest in history, it certainly is the highest among the highest in history in any financial year. And so you have come home to reality. It is impossible for you to have said that you came here and in nine months you have not borrowed. That is untrue. That is not true at all. You cannot survive in such harsh economic times without borrowing. The tourism sector is not backed to its full capacity. The economy has not recovered to its full capacity. How are you going to then be able to operate the government, make investments in critical public sector investment programs without borrowing? I mean, this is the parliament where the debate is supposed to be at an elevated level. And here we are for cheap politics, misleading people on a range of issues. The other point, though, Mr. Speaker, is Part B. It says 655,800,000 will be borrowed to finance existing debt. What this simply says is that when one government takes over from another administration like we did back in 2016, there were bondholders who would have made their investment back in 2013, and the life cycle of the bond might have been five or seven years. And so it rolls over into the cycle of another government. But what do you do? Do you then say that because the bond was bought under a solution-labor-party administration, so then, therefore, we're not going to honor it? No, we just don't have that option. So from time to time, governments are going to have to roll over bond. Roll over debts. Roll over instruments. Redeem instruments that people will either decide to call in on or instruments that people are going to decide to roll over and continue in the program. And so, therefore, this suggestion that you're going to survive without borrowing, this is psychosis, this is madness, and I can't believe that in the highest chamber in a 21st century democracy that the level of debate is so low that I'm going to hear people's government suggest that they're going to survive without borrowing. But your very budget has shown you that you're borrowing one of the highest levels of borrowing. I heard numbers bandied about. One senator said $9 billion was borrowed. The debt to GDP ratio is 92% of GDP. How can the debt be $9 billion if the GDP is less than $5 billion at this present time? So the math is certainly not adding up, Mr. President, on a range of the notions and the proposals and the suggestions that this administration is seeking to imply at this present time. So realism has come home. I am standing not in opposition to the borrowing, but really standing in opposition to the false narrative that has accompanied the very important issue of managing our debt. Now, if you tell me that there is a lot of work that needs to be done, not just the debt situation of St. Lucia, but the debt situation across Caracob. And if you look at the numbers in the social economic review, you will see, Mr. President, that the debt to GDP ratio in the OECS is very, very high. The fiscal ill health is a chronic situation that has gripped small economies like ours for decades. The ECCB back in 2015 suggested that in order for us to get out of the debt, we needed to grow the economy consistently by seven to ten percent for successive years in order for us to restore the fiscal health. And this is the conversation. The conversation should be how do we get out of the fiscal, the chronic fiscal situation that is not only affecting St. Lucia and is not what we left you in, because if we're going to go there and you go to page 121 of the social economic, no, not 121, but if you went to the table of the social economic review, you will see, Senator, that the debt, the debt started to go up. The St. Lucia Labor Party, when you met the debt in this country, back in 1997, it was 40 percent to GDP. By the time you left office in 2001, look at the table that speaks to debt and public liabilities. You will see it has the graph showing you the years of all of the debt, and you carried it up the debt to 58 percent by the time you left. By the time you came out of office back in 2011, you were at 80 percent of GDP back in 2016. That's where the debt to GDP ratio, because of the rebasing of the economy, the debt came down in 2016 to 59.6 percent or somewhere there. Please check the social economic review, and you will see that what is required here is not a narrative that your party is pushing. What is required here is serious analysis of looking at how do we balance this fiscal ill health of a debt to GDP ratio that has been spiraling out of control, not just in St. Lucia. Barbados is on an IMF program. Their debt to GDP ratio is above 100. The debt to GDP ratio in Antigua is excessively high. So this is a problem that has affected small countries in the Caribbean in the world. So don't come with this Labour Party propaganda. You're borrowing, you're borrowing, you're borrowing, because really that doesn't solve the problem. And the reason why you are begging for excuses on the one hand is because we are struggling to pay the issue of debt. Debt makes up about 30 percent of government recurrent expenditure. It's probably over 300 million to service the debt of this country. When you look at the principles and the interest payments, it's over 300 million dollars. One of the biggest line items and the only line item that have your fixed costs is the salaries. So the debt management is a very serious matter that members and the government side, you need to take it seriously and stop with the fluff, bring some weighty stuff. And so a very important argument is going to be how do we get out of it in the next five years? What is your plan? What is new? What new suggestions are you coming up with to reduce the debt burden, reduce the level of interest payment? And we are delighted to hear that you are continuing the policies that we have started and that is to transition from short-term debt because realize that you still have a very significant dependency on bonds. But now, not just the bonds, you have now got to go out and find long-term debt from organizations. And one of the things, Mr. President, that's a new phenomenon now and this government is about to find out is that loans are coming and they are now policy-driven loans that you go to the IMF, you go to the World Bank and they are going to say to you, well, if you want to borrow money, then these are some of the policy changes or these are some of the systematic legislative changes that you need to make. Now, I believe that a country is sovereign and a country ought to be able to make its own laws and those laws, Mr. President, should be decided by us, not by the IMF or the World Bank. But we have some very important choices to make going forward to see whether we are serious about restructuring the fiscal health of this country. So a very critical issue and I just wanted to raise those points because the narrative of they're borrowing, they're borrowing, they're borrowing, a lot of the money is that we borrowed is to rule over your bonds. That's how the economy works. It's bonds that we inherited from you that people had invested from back when you were in government from 2011 to 2016. Look at the social economic review and do a study and let's have a serious discussion and really come up with some solutions as to how we can address this problem. Already the debt-to-GDP ratio at 92% is 30% above prudential limits, 30%, which is a very, very high number. So already we see that this has reached unsustainable levels, which is why I thought that one of the things that this administration would have done is coming in first up that fixing the fiscal situation, repairing the fiscal situation, which is no doubt damaged by COVID-19. Any government that had to deal with that ordeal would have had to find monies to go in and to prop up the gap, the funding gap that when you lose 20% of your GDP, which is a billion dollars in business, when you lose 20% of government revenue. So of course you would have to borrow to prop up that gap and in propping up that gap, it had some damages to the fiscal ill health, of course. But the job now is not to come in and to borrow the biggest amount ever in a budget year, but it's to come in and to institute financial discipline and to have that discipline to order to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio. I thought that the motion put forward here, Mr. President, by the member, was a very interesting one in that it brought up and provoked many important points for the advancement of our fiscal situation in the country, and the Labour Party certainly has got its work cut out for it. Thank you. The Leader of Government and Business. Thank you, Mr. President. I didn't even expect to be standing here now considering the time, but I have to just remind the Leader of Opposition Business has now moved from Tourism Guru to Economic Guru and wants to give us a lecture at 7.35 about debt management and fiscal discipline, Mr. President. I think he would have been better advised to have offered that to his leader. Mr. President, just an observation. I think I just referred to fiscal rules in my closing rebuttal, and I think his colleague acknowledged that. So I'm not sure he was listening. He would have been in our naughty corner if he were teachers. Maybe that's why he spoke about teachers. We would have put him in our naughty corner as teachers. Mr. President, if you look at the figures that we just presented in this motion, there are two figures, 79,700,000, and the purpose is for financing the budget. The other figure, 655,800,000, is for financing existing debt. Mr. President, if you add the two, the total is 734,800,000. Mr. President, of that total, if you divide the amount that is for financing the budget by the total, it's just about close to 10%. It means therefore that almost 90% of that total debt is for refinancing existing debts. And all I'm going to say in this rebuttal, Mr. President, is that these existing debts of 655,800,000 has UWP written all over it. That's it. And to now come to this honorable Senate at this time to try to give us a lecture on fiscal discipline, that is the reason we have to deal with this now. Five years of recklessness that has landed us in a position, fiscal position, with a debt-to-GDP ratio that is now in the 90s or just about 90% plus when we came into government, and a debt stock that we are now dealing with. So all I will say, Mr. President, which is just to remind the member, that the 655,800,000 that we have spoken about debt that he tried to lecture on, if he looks well, he will see three letters written all over it. UWP. Mr. President, on that note, I ask for your concurrence, the concurrence of the House, to have this motion passed. Thank you, Mr. President. Senators, the question is that Parliament authorizes the Minister of Finance. Senators, the question is that Parliament authorizes the Minister of Finance to raise, A, the amount of EC$79,700,000 for financing the 2022-23 budget, B, the amount of EC$655,800,000 for financing existing debts. I now put the question, as many as are of that opinion say aye. Aye. As many as are of a country opinion say no. I think the ayes have it, the ayes have it. Leader of Government Business. Mr. President, I move that this Honourable Senate do stand adjourned. Sign it up. Honourable Senators, the question is that this Senate do stand adjourned. And at this point I would like to inform the House that as a lawyer and one that is exposed to Latin, it would be remiss of me if I ignored the correct phraseology, historically and by convention. We've also, we've always heard of the word S-I-N-E-D-I-E. We pronounce it Sinadi. I will take a page from the Speaker's book and of course I did my own research and standardized Latin and it should be pronounced S-I-N-E-D-I-E. So S-I-N-E-D-I-E. So this House does adjourn S-I-N-E-D-I-E. Thank you for Mr. President. And again I found myself in a very peculiar situation leading up to the elections of 2021 Mr. President where a certain individual in the constituency of Euphotnoff attempted bias.