 My solution participated in the ECCB netball tournament in Antigua and I was very very happy to be invited to that tournament first of all to see the progress that we've been making in netball and also to have some meetings with members of the Cricket West Indies board considering that we are getting ready to host the ICC Cricket World Cup. The goals they fared well in some of the games some others not so much. Saint Lucia finished fourth in the tournament but the the ambition is to ensure that Saint Lucia host the ECCB netball tournament the regional tournament next year and so I was able to spend some time with the Minister of Sport in Antigua some time with the persons from the Netball Association in Antigua see what was good what we can replicate and how we can make the tournament one of the best that we've ever had in recent times and so I'm enthusiastic about netball development the goals are back on island there are a lot of things that we have to sit at the table and discuss but I'm very confident that Saint Lucia will have a better show in next year. We figured out the conversations with Cricket West Indies a lot was discussed in terms of Saint Lucia's preparation for hosting the event as we know Darren Sammy is one of the most sought after stadiums in the world and not just because of Darren Sammy but because Saint Lucia have all the dynamics of hosting the global event in terms of the rooms availability of rooms for fans who will be traveling to and from Saint Lucia in terms of the logistics of the Cricket Association in terms of our track record Saint Lucia has always hosted a successful global event and we are certainly looking forward to doing that again. How many matches are you getting? For now we have a situation where the fixtures are not out as yet Cricket West Indies have indicated that they will be putting the fixtures out in November so next month I would have a more accurate answer for you in terms of the amount of games Saint Lucia will be hosting but the number is set at about five for now Saint Lucia will be hosting the Super 8 and the Super 8 pretty much is another round robin after the initial round robin and so we expecting to host quite a few games in Saint Lucia but the exact number we do not have that as we currently speak. I am aware that there were some drainage issues at the stadium. Any plans to fix it? What can we get any of these on that? The drainage system as with a lot of things that the Darren's Army was installed in 2001 which would mean that would be 22 years ago. Technology has pretty much gone ahead. We've seen a lot of the recent stadium being equipped with a different form of drainage. The funny thing is we had already emacked the Darren's Army for an upgrade and so we received the costume and the work is expected to start in November on the drainage system and the surface of the Darren's Army ahead of the cricket tournament. While we speak about some of the upgrades the lighting system is also expected to be upgraded at the Darren's Army simply because again this was installed in 2001 which is 22 years ago and as you would know with lights the burning from inside would cause the yellow in I would say orange in of the external lights which would make it dimmer over time and so as a Minister for Youth Development and Sports I've always been one on record to say that we have to move into LED lighting at all of our stadium and then of course move into alternative forms of energy and so we will be seeing an upgrade of the lighting at the Darren's Army as well. Okay, back on the cricket, what's the cost of being able to ensure I know they've been concerned in Antigua, they did not because they seem to have costed too much for what solution the benefit is. Jamaica was the one who did not. Well if you look at Jamaica, comparing Jamaica and St. Lucia in this time in history in terms of of their sports tourism product I think Jamaica's government would have been comfortable with foregoing this woke up considering the successes. St. Lucia's recently started having amazing successes in terms of the achievement on the global scene as it pertains to our sports tourism product with Julian Alfred and of course we are seeing the Army breaking in and some of the other individuals being global stars. So I think Jamaica's position was that they did not think at that time that the cost-benefit analysis were in their favour. St. Lucia considering our burgeoning economy and the strides we've made in tourism, we are of the position that there are tremendous benefits to St. Lucia for hosting this event. We're talking about almost 2 billion people or 2 billion pairs of eyes being on sweet St. Lucia during especially the super eat component of the competition and so we expect tremendous benefits in terms of visibility for St. Lucia and that is why we made that decision. In terms of the cost, we are still putting the final figures together in terms of the upgrades to the playing field and the surrounding areas but again considering the stadium has been in existence for 22 years, those upgrades were bound to come at some point and so we are very confident that the upgrades that we are making and the finances that we are going to pump into the Darren's Army and of course the grossly playing field and the Mindo-Filipak as training grounds would augur well for our sportsmen and women and for St. Lucia as a whole. Also, I am aware that the government plans to send me professionalised football. Do we have any updates on that? I know that the national team has been doing very well as of recent times. Yes, I have to congratulate our football team both male and female for the strides we are making in football. I can tell you the feeling when you speak to young people are actually in football right now and it is very positive considering that this government came in with the ambition of ensuring that we semi-professionalised football. So a lot of people are looking towards football as an alternative way of getting an income. We've had meetings, a number of meetings with the St Lucia Football Association. We are expecting that very soon for the marketing and promotion of the semi-professional league to commence. We have a challenge considering that we won the bid and it took quite a while. Cricket-Restinies took quite a while before announcing that St Lucia was indeed one of the venues for the ICC. So the ambition was to launch the semi-professionally at the Mendovili Park. And so now the Mendovili Park will be closed for renovations. And so in terms of venues, we have to have North, South, East and West for the semi-pro league. And so we've been at the table trying to ensure that we can have that complete. The Prime Minister has bid the financing available for the semi-pro league. So we're hoping for us to start very early next year. Would futsal be considered as an additional component? I know that futsal is an event that Olympics and this kind of thing. So would futsal be considered as well? Very good question, my brother. I think futsal, as with, if you look at all sporting events, you look at volleyball, you have a two and two component. You look at cricket, you move away from, I shouldn't say move away, but we've graduated from tests to one days to now T20 years of fast five in a netball, rugby seven. So all versions of sport, given, I guess, the attention span of people seem to have been truncated in some way. And so futsal is one of the truncations made in sport. As a minister, I can tell you futsal brings in a lot of commercial value and excitement. Currently, the commercial sector has taken on futsal. And as a government, I don't think necessarily that we need to interfere with private sector development in sport. We want to encourage the private sector to come up with those sort of events so that they can generate some income and pass it on to consumers, whether for vending, whether for payment of our athletes. And so we're very happy with the development we see in futsal. In terms of, let's just say a company like Blackheart or any other company deciding to invest in futsal, they would have the backing of this government 100%. But we would not be the forerunners of the development of futsal in St. Lucia. That was new in your constituency. All right. So the constituency of Bruce Lee, as you can see, has been under some major infrastructural development. And of course, we are very proud of some of the social events that we have ongoing in terms of programs in our community. You would have seen recently, the community of Beau Céju in given attention. This is after 20 odd years of pretty much patching and patching of roads in Beau Céju. A real comprehensive road network program has been emacked for Beau Céju. We've started on most of the roads. We're expecting about 90% of the roads to be given some form of attention currently. And then later on, the food at 10%. The ambition is to have to give Beau Céju what they deserve. And as a proper road network, the contractor has been faced with some challenges. Sometimes with vehicles parked on the side of the road, as you would have seen. And sometimes with weather patterns, disallowing for the flow of work. But the project is ongoing. And we're expecting that Beau Céju by the end of the year to be almost complete in terms of the development of the road network. And we are going to be moving on to Kazaba and the Mont-Souto to revamp the bridge project. We also have a number of social programs happening in Bruce Lee. For the first time in our history, we were able to implement a virtual constituency day. I think it was the first in Saint-Lausias history. Given the fact that I was out for a while, what we decided to do was to pretty much wherever in the world I was connect via Zoom and allow people to come in the office regularly and have conversations with the MP so that he could provide some assistance to them. With our first edition of virtual constituency day, almost 90% of the requests I can proudly see of our constituents who met, we were able to contact them immediately when upon my return. And we've been getting some positive feedback from constituents. We also have a program that we are going to implement very soon called Dress for Success, where we're inviting the entire diaspora and individuals in all walks of life to provide the clothing that they may not be interested in using anymore to young persons that come to the office that are looking for jobs, that have landed an interview, but really do not have the means considered unemployed in the first place to have a proper shirt, tie, pants, and in some instances, dress and that sort of thing. So we are encouraging all of the public to come forth with some of the clothing that they are no longer using because we know as human beings our weight fluctuates. So some of us may be a little heavier and would have left the clothing that we used to use in the in the draws and some of us would have lost some weight. And so we're inviting everybody to drop off the clothing at the Bruce Lee HR DC, so that we can commence the program and provide that opportunity for our young people. So there's a lot happening in Bruce Lee. Is there public housing coming to Bruce Lee? Yes, there's also public housing, the rent to own program, the National Housing Corporation and the Ministry of Housing. The first project will be built in Bruce Lee and we're hoping that very early next year in Kazaba, we'll see that building go up to give persons who are over middle to lower income the opportunity to to own at least a flat during the next year. This is one of the campaign promises that I made without even having a conversation with the Minister of Housing before we got into government. And I'm very proud of the fact that we are going to take that off as another achievement in the constituency of Bruce Lee. Kazaba, Kazaba. When you say when Bruce, okay, so Kazaba, okay, so I guess I understand what you're asking. The trim stadium, you would have to go straight down towards the beach. Straight down towards the beach. You see, there's no other road to describe it. So the trim, you continue all the way down. As a matter of fact, the road development is going to commence and then of course that rent to own program. Yes, finally for me, the city has a great zone that is interesting to share. A little bit of a tiny dollar to support the youth economy. Are you pleased with the progress the agency has accomplished as well? You see that there is your point of very satisfied. Thank you, Mr. Kazaba. Signing ceremony for in excess of 26 million to upgrade basically the entire plan. So I think it's probably the biggest single injection into the plan. So it's in a while. How do you anticipate that might benefit five officers of the country to the national security? Okay, well, the protective services that is a department that we felt had been neglected for a while in terms of the resources that they needed to carry out their duties. And one of them is the St. Lucia fire service. And you will be aware that during the time of COVID, the fire service played a tremendous role in saving people's lives and rescuing people in all different parts of St. Lucia. And therefore the equipment that they had and they still continue to use has suffered some serious wear and tear. And government felt it was necessary that we get some new equipment for these officers to carry out their duties. And it is well received by them. They will be getting some fire trucks. They will also be receiving some ambulances as well as fire drone for the airport. We also have incorporated in that project where we got to the tune of 9.9 million US dollars, about 26 million EC dollars that will be secured for these activities. The fire officers will get support for training and government is in the process of establishing an advanced training institute for the protective services. Because what we have seen is that police have the training, fire have the training, correctional officers have the training. So we are using the training school in Viewfort where government has acquired additional land to build a complex for training for all the protective services. So that too will be incorporated in this project. And there are other equipment that we felt that the fire officers needed for them to to carry out their duties. I know some of them, their expectations are still a little higher because we are already working on a feasibility study to look at the headquarters for the fire service. So that too is on the cards for government to begin to look at. And government is very appreciative of the work of the fire service, especially as you see, they actually engage in a lot of preventative measures to avoid fires and even to protect homes that are caught by fire. But the issue of emergency medical technician who played that role during COVID and anytime there is an accident sometimes murder, they are among the first to be on site to see what they can do. And therefore we have to give them the tools they need for them to be efficient and effective in carrying out their duties. Yes, I also mentioned that, yes, sorry, press briefing my bad. And also what they stated was that currently right now there is a lot of trauma, mental trauma and mental illness, sorry, when it comes to the different situations in the fire department when they go out to the emergency, sorry, is there any mental problems that could include some type of therapy or what not that can be introduced or the benefit? Well, that project will address appointing somebody to deal with psychosocial problems, affecting persons in the protective services. And many times they try to access the services that are provided by the public service. And they find that the waiting period is too long and therefore they will need their own office, their own personnel to handle psychosocial problems. And they do experience some traumatic situations and they need immediate attention. So that too is incorporated in that project. Well, I don't have full detail on the operations of this initiative. But as you may be aware that government right now is looking at improving the security and intelligence measures in handling crime. There are a number of initiatives that we are taking. And one of the things that we have stressed especially when it comes to the police force is that they are actually looking at rebranding the police force. And so that the community can have greater rapport with the police. As you know the people, the general public, they are the biggest crime fighters. And if they cooperate with the police, it will make life a lot easier. So measures like the conditions for Bill and other issues, these are some of the things that we want to put in place to enhance the way we administer justice in this country. And the police right now, there are a lot of more sophisticated equipment that they will use in fighting crime. We are looking at the issue of intelligence, using a lot of intelligence to fight crime. And then we want to accelerate and expand what we call the community relations, community policing, where people don't see the police as a threat, but more as a partner in keeping the country safe and secure. So the point that you raise is one where we want to begin to refine a lot of what we are doing in administering justice, crime and security matters in St. Lucia. And on that note, over to weekend, you met with a rally visiting, and one of the issues came out where one of the agencies did indicate that threatening and taking the finger of police and threatening police, giving it all of those words for the justice setting for the same issue where political operatives are threatening police. Well, as you know, there are a number of little innuendos and threats that are issued around the police. And these are things that the police need to pay close attention to because sometimes people dismiss these things as always just a rally or somebody has said something. But we can treat it as a formal threat to the police, where if the police is carrying out their duties and somebody felt that they were not satisfied with the decision of the police, that they could put the photos or the names on record for further forms of reprisal or action against them. This I find is not correct. It is not acceptable. And our law enforcement officers are also paying close attention to the individuals who are actually articulating these expressions. Well, I need to tell persons that too many times we see the police as our adversaries. The police supposed to be the friend of the people because they are there to protect them. And if we begin to change our attitude towards the police, we will get a lot more out of them rather than the confrontational aspect. If we can relate the policemen who work in St. Lucia, they are both men and women. They are mothers, they are fathers, they are husbands, they are sons. So they are human beings that live in our society. And let us treat them as that and work with them so that they carry out their duties. One of the things I have articulated is some people do not understand the scope of work of the police officers and their length and breadth and the extent to which they go to protect St. Lucia. And I think it is the responsibility of the police to give public relations on the nature of the work that they do. So people develop a greater appreciation. When these people have to go out there in the forest and carry out some read, they are taking a chance with their lives in order to protect us in the middle of the night and we are home sleeping. Do we really understand what that means? A police officer could easily say, I'm not going or I will not do it. But some of them do have the courage to go out there. And we need to applaud these officers for that kind of courage and sacrifice that they are making to keep our country safe and secure. Okay, and I don't know, would some of the bodily disturbance that they had, I know you have done some interventions, you have been on the fence. What are the latest reports? Well, right now things are fairly quiet and bodily. There was some sign of protest by some of the protective the correctional officers. They have since gone back to them to the jobs and things are normal. And we are still continuing to invest heavily in bodily and right now government is in the process and they have started the work to secure the outer fence at bodily which costs in the region of close to six million dollars. This institution has been around for almost 20 years and it has never received any serious infrastructural work in terms of repair. And many things were falling apart. The place is exposed to the sea blasts and a lot of things were getting rusty, falling apart and so on. And this government under the leadership of the Prime Minister has committed quite a bit of funds. We are actually halfway within this financial year and we can see that we have spent about 10 million dollars at bodily to put in a number of security measures and to give the correctional officers the tools they need to carry out the work properly. I understood that you were going to simply re-appointed the deputy and a number of million of appointment and contract. I know there are some concerns with some officers about that. What are your thoughts on that and what's happened? Well again as you know at bodily correctional facility we have a new director and before the director came in we did a review of bodily and that review articulated what we had to do in a short term period, medium term and long term and we did the short term evaluation after the six months because the short term was for six months and after the six months we went into the permanent secretary, myself as minister and a team we went into bodily and we went through the recommendations about 19 of them and at the time which was earlier this year we had achieved about 90 percent of what we set out to do. So it was very clear that the government was achieving its objectives and they had already started on some medium and long term measures for example like the fencing and other security measures. In fact we are trying to get radios for the correctional officers and about 50 radios cost about $340,000. So it is something that is a very expensive operation and it is one thing that I have always advised St. Lucian's that it is more cost effective. It is socially positive if people avoid crime because it's a very expensive exercise for government to secure persons behind bars and to take care of them in a human fashion. So we are trying our best to prevent crime so that we have less persons at bodily. People were saying we need to secure the place, we need to fight crime and since then they have arrested a lot more persons which has brought in a lot of pressure on the institution to take care of all these people. The past some solutions have questioned whether the work of justices of the peace as necessary seems like every document that we have to get whether it's passport or wherever must be signed by these public servants. The question is do you still believe that they are necessary and if so what is their value to society? Well the Prime Minister and the Department of Justice, the other ones responsible for appointing justice of the peace and after while we need to do an evaluation to see whether it is really serving the purpose. I have heard complaints that people said justice of the peace not supposed to charge people for them to sign a document to verify whether it is authentic and if that is the law are we having persons who have to keep the law breaking the law. So these are some of the issues that are raised but again you will see the person had to use a stamp, they had to use paper, they had to use their time. Don't you feel it is fair to compensate them for that resource that people are actually accessing. So it is one that as you mentioned we may have to ask the government to do an evaluation to see whether it is actually serving its purpose. But I want to draw briefly to your attention that while you were speaking on the police force there are a few sessions going on right now in the police force and it is basically looking at the issue of gender. And today and tomorrow there is a session with all the female officers at the Haber Club hotel and I am supposed to address them there on how what happens in the workplace. As you know most of the correctional unit are dominated by males. It is more or less a male dominated job. You have police, you have fire, you have correctional, you have much, a very small percentage of women who are attracted to these type of work. And there is issue in terms of how secure and how safe women feel going into the profession that is male dominated. So they have a session with all male police officers to discuss their challenges as male police officers. And there is a session for female police officers to address some of the issues relating to them in the workplace. So I will be addressing them to look at the gender issues as it relates to the workplace in the protective services. The relocation of the the immigration department, I actually visited the site. So the place is ready. It looks very much enhanced and everything is in place. All the technology, electrical, everything is in place. However, the the Royals and Lucia police force, you know when you move to a new local police force, you know when you move to a new local police force, you know when you move to a new location, you don't want to carry all your old desks and chairs in that new location. It's going to be a little disheartening to see for those of you who have moved to a new home, you cannot take all your old beds and everything in the old home and bring it in the new home. It's going to degrade the environment. So the police officers to move but the building, the space is ready for them to move into the new location. I think it's public knowledge. The piece is opposite the Laplace Carinage, that building upstairs there. They used to say, how do you call it? Wet and cold. So the top floor, that is where they will be occupying. So they did a lot more stations. They have waiting areas for the people to go in. They did retrofitting of the steps to go up there. And it's a lot more conducive for persons to operate and they will be moving in that environment. You mean the fees that people have to pay when they call ambulance? And he has them not to abuse it. Just like they are abusing the battery remove on the phone. He has definitely tried to help out in the public. There are some people who cannot afford to pay. And when we put the zero, it means even if you cannot afford it or you cannot afford it, it is zero. So everybody benefits. So it is a big relief especially for persons who cannot afford. And I don't know how long we can cap it if the prime minister will decide to see for the next year or two years or whether it is ongoing forever but whatever fees that would be collected from that would be some revenue that government will forego. But it is in the interest of saving lives and providing healthcare and security for our people. So I think it's a very good move so that everybody will have equal access to the services provided by the ambulance. Before you leave, would you like to change the approach when dealing with the police? Yes, because we are not living in a perfect world and when this government came in we found that there was a zero allocation for training for police. We even found that a number of persons were recruited to the police force without any prior training. They were just in uniform and they were on the road and doing policing. We found that was an atrocity. This is a specialized unit. It's not something where you can go and do some reading and you get your CXC and you get your full degree in anything and the next day you are a police officer. It requires some special skills and at least you need that orientation before you come into the police force. When we discovered that government immediately put some allocation in the budget initially we put about $300,000 to train the police officers and we have increased that so really and truly we have seen that training officers to carry out their work is critical and one of them would be the attitude towards the public. How do they relate to people? I believe to some extent that we find that we restrict ourselves to what we know in our environment. However we need to give our persons whether it's police, fire, persons in the public service, wherever you work, even in the media, you need to have exposure in terms of what's happening outside of St Lucia so we can compare. So you need exposure at the regional level, you need exposure at the international level so you can come back and implement some of the best practices that you would have learned. So I believe that it is to train our policemen not just on what they see in St Lucia, what they know but what is happening in the other islands in the Caribbean and what's happening whether it's in the UK, the US, Canada so they come back with some fresh ideas to implement, to improve security, to improve safety and that is how you raise the bar. You need a few of them that are above board so that they can pull up the others and say no this is not how we do things this is how they do it over there and they are seeing results why don't we try this? But if they restrict themselves to only what they know then it's like spinning top in mud. So I believe that it is necessary that we invest in training developing the skills of officers so they can improve the quality of their performance. Is there any requirements, educational requirements or what not, maybe strength requirements but psychological evaluations of the people that are being included? Right now we are getting the recruitment and assignment of police officers to be a lot more sophisticated and that is why I mentioned earlier that we are looking at rebranding the police force and rebranding means a lot of things and recently we have concluded what we call a benchmark qualification for the protective services. We found that a lot of persons were promoted within these ranks based on certificates and it's not just masters in business administration or masters in technology and so on, it's whether you have the skills, the experience and the ability to do the work as specified and therefore the team of experts that designed and came up with the benchmark qualification we are going to use it to determine whether you are moving up the ranks and what would qualify you and not so much how many certificates you have, what degree that matters but it's not the primary focus, the primary focus will be are you fit if you look at some police officers they need to go to the gym, it's not anything but you can say how are you going to I actually experienced a police officer chasing a criminal in castries and he couldn't catch up so these are things that when they put you on the field to do certain work that you are fit you have the skills, you have the experience and if your work is more for administration they put you in the administration so that's what we say do not put square pegs in round holes let us get the job done and make sure you are ready so I think that will speak to what we mean by benchmark qualification experience, skills and abilities that will determine whether you move up the ranks, whether you are placing this category or not because we want results okay, alright good morning everybody I wanted to just mention a few things related to my trip to Costa Rica to attend the 22nd regular meeting of the inter-Caribbean border boundary culture IBA and that meeting is really was really meant to bring all ministers of agriculture in the Caribbean and Latin America together to discuss the issues in agriculture and you know the agricultural sector is on the map these days because food security, food insecurity is becoming a major discussion not just in St. Lucia, not just in the Caribbean but a worldwide problem following this meeting we again assembled in the Bahamas to attend the 17th meeting of the Caribbean week of agriculture and during that week from the 9th to the 13th of October we were engaged in a number of meetings especially with our partners like FAO, we had a meeting, a special meeting of the OECS ministers council, we met with FAO partners to discuss agriculture we had a meeting with the Board of Cardi and we had a special meeting called the Quoted Meeting on Agriculture which is the council of trade and economic development in terms of agriculture and basically food security as I mentioned the 25 by 2025 target that the region established in 2018 we are realizing that there are number of factors that are creating challenges in terms of whether we are going to meet that target by the year 2025 one of, you would understand the impact that climate change is having on the agricultural sector and that is causing havoc not just in the Caribbean but in the region we had COVID two years back and you know again how it impacted the sector but now we are seeing excessive heat in the Caribbean region and even countries like Belize they have seen a reduction in the yield of corn by 50% as a result of the excessive heat this excessive heat we need to be concerned about it because it will reduce yield of milk in cattle you know the quantity or levels of meat production in cattle but again cattle needs shade cattle needs a certain amount of grass and as a result of the excessive heat what it make us is to ensure that persons with large farms will have to maybe invest in irrigation because if your cattle your farms are your grass areas are not healthy it means that it will reduce your level of production also we suspect that may not survive in pre heat conditions may be able to survive in the high excessive heat that we are experiencing now we also have a very serious matter on our hands in Hispaniola places like Haiti and Dominican Republic they are experiencing the African swine fever and it is a serious concern for us in the Caribbean what is happening that is a positive for our region is that it seemed to have been stationed in the Dominican Republic for a very long time and we are not seeing a spread rapidly in the Caribbean other Caribbean countries the US Government came through the USID had a special meeting with Ministers of Agriculture whilst in the Marmills we were indicated to give support this African swine flu disease there is no cure for it and we are hoping that we will increase our civilians we will get more training of our staff to ensure our biosecurity security at our ports will do all that is necessary to avoid this disease from getting into the Caribbean because if that happens again it's going to affect our food security it's going to impact our food import bill and our 25x25 will be again challenged we would know what we did just recently with the TR-4 in bananas it is another disease if we do not increase our biosecurity it will reach our ports and it can devastate the entire banana and plant in sub sectors in St. Lucia so the discussions in the Marmills was excellent I think that was an opportunity for a lot of the Ministers to come together and really discuss the problems the Latin American countries like Brazil and Argentina they are faced with similar crisis and they are willing to share experiences share knowledge with small island states like St. Lucia to ensure that we address this food security crisis head on I just wanted to make one announcement to our farmers you would recall that my Prime Minister led a delegation to Venezuela over the last two weeks and we have been told that some level of assistance in the form of fertilizer will be granted to our farmers what a timely opportunity for us to increase our food production because there is a call for increasing production of our food St. Lucia because in some cases when you go to mass you see the supermarket shelves empty I know some persons especially those on the other side seem to deliberately not remember that we had a storm in June and as a result our plant and sub sectors were devastated and as a result it is responsible for what you see on the supermarket shelves but I guarantee St. Lucia that in the next few weeks we will see more food in our supermarket shelves but I was not to say that we do not have other challenges in the agricultural sector in St. Lucia and in the next week or so I plan to bring together key farmers key producers in the sector to discuss the challenge faced in terms of the agricultural sector our food security and more importantly our food import bill it is very important that we continue to encourage our farmers to produce continue to give them the support that they require to produce because at the end of the day we must be food secure and we must make a drastic effort to reduce our food import bill by encouraging farmers to produce what we eat to grow what we eat and to eat what we grow about agricultural processing what has been done to strengthen the linkages between the farmers who produce the raw material and the business sector to develop food products so like turning cocoa into chocolate and that type of thing what has been done by the industry? Well if you were not aware yesterday we had a cocoa festival in Souffre and I was in the Parliamentary Rep's constituency and I came off a flight about three o'clock and I headed down there and I was able to see the connection between the farmers and what was produced you would be able to you would be able to see a lot of the products made out of cocoa there was the cocoa and I think soaps and a number of other products I think it augurs well for us in the agricultural processing sector but what I'm concerned about is every time I ask those persons I visited yesterday the question is can I get those products on the supermarket shelves and they will say no so we still have a lot to do in terms of getting to the next level we had a cassava and coconut festival in Miku a few months ago we had a banana festival we had Simos festival we had mango festivals but that is one level of exposing them getting to know who they are getting to understand the challenges and what is important is for us to take it to the next level but what is important in doing that is that food standards must be extremely high you want to ensure that you have a product that is safe for consumption and at the end of the day you want to be able to ensure that our citizens our visitors can go to any mass store any other supermarket and be able to get those products on those shelves a lot of persons are operating from home I want to ensure that we work together with commerce and the other players, the other partners health and get to see a lot of the products on the supermarket shelves and in turn exporting those products to other countries another question about diversification what are the plans to get some more non-traditional I guess plans into Senusia I know that we generally heavily react with others and these other things but what are some of the plans to get some non-traditional cops as I mentioned earlier the agricultural sector is challenged by a number of factors and this is necessary and important to build a resilient agricultural sector that is key because climate change you do not know when it's going to an end and it will continue to have an impact on the sector and that is why it is important for us to diversify the agricultural sector I am not in any way saying to you that bananas are not important because bananas continue and will continue to impact the rural areas of Senusia we still have over 2000 plus acres of bananas on Senusia we still have more than 300 plus farmers involved directly in banana production and if you multiply 300 farmers by let's say 4 persons you know in a family you talk in 1000 plus people who still heavily depends on the agricultural on bananas so what we need to do is to get into other forms of agriculture like cassava and I am hoping that we will be putting a new spending request together to get into cassava production we have a COCO project that we are currently implementing we are hoping that we can increase the percentage of COCO by 250 hectares sorry and we are hoping that we can get more persons into that kind of production we believe it is important because agriculture is not only about bananas you would understand what happened to our banana market in the UK recently but there is still tremendous potential in the region for our bananas as I said before our target was 15,000 boxes per week about 7,500 so I see tremendous potential but you are right we are encouraging a number of other crops in agriculture that I believe has the potential for us to continue the diversification process because that is the only way we are going to be food secure and don't forget the seven crops program is in that increasing production of those commodities in an effort to reduce our imports on those seven crops that's all farmers food security is a major issue here so can we expect any more results from this Venezuelan meeting? well we have a meeting tomorrow so we had the meeting the ministerial meeting at PM and everybody else had this zoom meeting last week it has gotten to the technical pathway tomorrow my technical team and the technical team in Venezuela will meet via zoom to discuss the fertilizer issue so what I am told is that we will be getting 2,000 tons of the fertilizer and 2,000 tons of fertilizer will be equivalent to 40,000 bags of fertilizer now what we have done is we have conducted research on our soils on the project called the moroccan soils project and we have put together a list of those fertilizer blends that we require in St. Lucia based on results coming from the soils research that was done that has been submitted to the team in Venezuela so you will see blends like a mixture of phosphorous and potassium a mixture of urea or sulfate of ammonia so they are different blends based on our soils so it is not a case where we are just bringing in fertilizer and we do not know what the impact would be on soil so I am just going to make it clear again it will not be 40,000 bags of urea it will be urea mixed with various blends of other fertilizer types good morning members of the press good morning St. Lucia my first comment as the minister of commerce concerns the issue of price control on sanitary napkins so the ministry of commerce manufacturing business development properties and consumer affairs which is to inform the general public that effective October 23 2023 until August 1st 2025 sanitary napkins will be price controlled this action became necessary after an impact study conducted by the consumer affairs department of the ministry revealed that the prices of these essential items did not reflect the expected 12.5% reduction in VAT implemented by the government of St. Lucia from August 2nd 2023 consequently the cabinet of ministers approved an amendment to the price control order to add sanitary napkins to the list of price control items the cabinet further approved a maximum wholesale market price of 30% and a maximum retail price market price of 35% on these items the consumer affairs department of the ministry of commerce continue to provide guidance to the business community to ensure compliance and invite consumers to contact the department at 468-4239 or 468-4226 should you have any queries I said tampons I'm not included in this it's just the napkins sanitary products so tampons would include that yes sorry the price would be sanitary napkins specifically but some products yes I have a question about national minimum wage national minimum wage I was aware that the government was trying to establish a minimum wage right we do understand how it would benefit employees but also thinking about people who start up businesses entrepreneurs what challenges do you foresee that would pose to them and how can the government help balance out these challenges well I'm glad you have that question but first the minister responsible for labour honorable Virginia Poyer to deal with the issue of this from a business perspective you would realize that up to now the Ministry of Finance is helping us do the economic review that is required so that we see what impact it would have on the business community that is why we have taken a little time before we come out to see exactly how we are going to roll out a minimum wage because it's going to impact parts of the business community in different ways but the government is very mindful of its impact on the business community so we continue to work we have our technocrats at the Ministry of Finance working with Ministry of Commerce as well as Ministry of Labour to ensure that the research that is done is one that is going to impact all the stakeholders business persons as well as the employees and I need to make a statement as it relates to my role as the parliamentary rep for Soufre Foshajat as you know our team Soufre United won the black hats trophy and what we did on Friday was to bring my team together to thank them on behalf of the Soufre community that went very well also in the area of sports on Thursday evening the Soufre Regional Development Foundation sponsored our team Soufre Stumpers for the SPL series I'm saying so to tell you that within the Soufre Foshajat constituency we've placed significant efforts and focus on our youth and the area of sports so we will continue relaying to you the progress that you're making that's in the area of sports as in the area of Soufre Foshajat you also know that Soufre is a host community and our approach for observance of Soufre Foshajat was to have events and activities throughout the month we started with events at Fongelib we followed that with the Sunday at Bouton and last weekend we did Saturday we had Zeno and yesterday Sunday we had Creole the Cocoa Festival in Soufre we're going to have next weekend we're going to have the entire weekend in Foshajat we have a competition and everything else this is followed by the following weekend where we have the actual Jeunet Creole celebration Tuesday which is tomorrow we're going to have our Margaret Festival with our schools in Soufre we're celebrating that as well but we also want to tell Saint Lucia that we are culminating the entire month by going into the first Sunday of November and there we have what you call Kudme Soufre where we are trying to get all the communities to come out and do Kudme within the community to clean to beautify and to bring that whole spirit of self-help back into our community I take this moment to thank all of Saint Lucia who have come here yesterday we had persons from all over I want to thank you for participating and supporting and I want to tell you that the people of Soufre continue to look forward to embracing you with piton love so we look forward to celebrating the month of Saint Lucia and I want to thank all of Saint Lucia also yesterday was International Day for Rural Women so I want to take this moment to recognize the efforts of our rural women in their role in terms of entrepreneurs as well as farmers and as well as citizens who have stayed and kept the thoughts today 16th is World Food Day and I think our minister maybe forgot I'm not sure if he mentioned that but it's also World Food Day it's an important day for us persons in terms of the whole issue of food security so again I want to raise that consciousness among all Saint Lucia's that we need to eat what we grow and grow what we eat nutrition is important for us the school system and new members of the press please do all you can because you had a mouthpiece of all of us to continue encouraging our citizens to eat what we grow and grow what we eat and to eat fresh Saint Lucia best thank you Sean Edward Acting Prime Minister Minister of Education Sustainable Development Innovation Science Technology Vocational Training and perhaps one of the most important in all of this is Parliamentary Representative Henry Noff Parliamentary Representative Henry Noff Over the weekend we had an involved incident including one on the site in your constituency what do you say well first of all let me say that our government denounces violence we are not happy with where we are at as a country in terms of the level of criminality we see happening in Saint Lucia at the moment but as the Prime Minister would have said previously ours is a role where we provide oversight we will continue to equip the police and the other agencies with the resources to ensure that they execute their mandate in ways that will make Saint Lucia a more peaceful place where citizens can coexist with each other as it relates to the killing in the Denry Basin I have to emphatically denounce that act of violence and I should profit the opportunity to implore not just residents of Denry but Saint Lucia across the length and breadth of this country to look for amicable ways to resolve conflicts and not turn to violence happening in our country in the last couple of months but what are you doing because it seems to be in your constituency and concerns over the last couple of months and I know you are doing some but Denry has been a hotbed what are you talking to your people well I'm just coming out of a meeting with a member of the High Command of the Royal San Lucia Police Force we were not looking at Denry specifically but we are particularly concerned with what is happening in Denry and we continue to make resources available to the police empower the police just a little over a year or less than a year ago we went to parliament to enact legislation where the police were given special powers to make interventions to try and curb the crime situation so we are not happy with it as I said it is worrying and we know of the adverse consequences that crime and criminality can have on our country the social standpoint and that is why we continue to make the resources available collaboratively with social partners to try and bring that situation under control I don't have details but it has been brought to my attention that somebody did burglarize the offices of the Sustainable Development Department I don't have details in terms of the extent of the damage but yes that was brought to my attention and I'm reliably informed that the police are on the scene and hopefully later today I will get a comprehensive report in terms of what transpired I cannot speak to the staff at the time that it happened from what I was told there was nobody on the premises but as I said the police they are conducting their investigation and hopefully by the end of today I'll be in a position to speak more authoritatively on what transpired no I don't have a statement I'm taking questions that's a battle that has to between UNESCO and San Wusha and us trying to maintain the piton status as a World Heritage Site are you going to give us the details what will be happening the team who is carrying that thing I noticed there was a report in the media last week where the point was made that we were on the threat of losing our World Heritage status that is the piton management area let me say that that information is erroneous there is no imminent threat to San Wusha losing the heritage status that we currently enjoy there was a meeting of UNESCO convened in Saudi Arabia last month and San Wusha was represented at that meeting and based on the reports coming out of that particular meeting as I said there is no imminent threat what I can tell you is that we have to control development within the PMA very recently there is a private landowner in the PMA who wanted to embark on a particular project which we believe can adversely affect the status that we currently enjoy and it was against that backdrop as a government we took a position where we were opposed to it as a cabinet but it was in the cabinet that really went out there fighting it the DCA in their wisdom wisdom sorry they did not uphold the application for the development the matter was taken to court and the government of San Wusha were not successful in that particular court matter but we have appealed the decision of the court and even before that second hearing is convened we as an administration we are speaking with international partners to see what can be done to ensure that we save, God will heritage status that we currently enjoy this means a lot to San Wusha this means a lot to the people of Soufrem and we will spare absolutely no effort whatsoever to ensure that we preserve the heritage status that we currently enjoy we understand that a lot of the lands within the demarcated areas that constitute the PMA belong to private owners and if it is that we have to acquire lands or do whatever is possible within the legal framework we will do so but for us the priority of the Philippe JPLA administration is that we will preserve at all costs the current world heritage status we enjoy with UNESCO so there's no battle with UNESCO there's no battle with UNESCO I think if there is a battle it really is with maybe private property owners and it's not a battle we've been speaking to them trying to dissuade certain developments but people have a right to resort to the courts their point and as I said the matter was brought before the court we were not successful in the first round and it is as a result of the importance we ascribed to the PMA that we have decided to appeal we will spend millions of dollars if we have to in the court process but our priority as a government is to ensure that the current world heritage status we enjoy with the PMA that will be preserved and I'm very confident moving forward that we will retain our world heritage status for many many years to come but it calls for a lot of engagement it calls for a lot of dialogue we have to continue to impress upon the minds of residents in Souffre and even property owners within the PMA show them the significance of that particular accolade for our country and we're hoping that as I said we will be successful in ensuring that we preserve the world heritage status that we currently enjoy one of the things I think was the judge saying that there was no legal backing to back up your defence or is there plans to legislate development or I don't want to get into details as we say in law the matter is of Judike meaning that it is still very active so any legal pronouncement on that I would defer to the attorney general but what I can tell you as the minister responsible for sustainable development and as a member of the cabinet that we are committed to the odds using all resources at our disposal, technical, human, financial to ensure that there is preservation of the world heritage status that we currently enjoy in relation to Creole Heritage Month yes yes I must say I'm extremely pleased with the effort in Denrenoff as it relates to the Mabia Valley hosting Juner Creole 2023 we have a very well put together committee or team spearheading the effort it really comprises members of different community based organizations of course he will be assisted by some technocrats from government the CDF so far the events that they've executed have been tremendously successful last weekend there was a science, a Lama Gerit Science in Ridgefond near Falcozba based on the footage I was not here but based on the footage that was shared I can tell you it was a resounding success I think that same weekend or a few days later there was an opportunity in the Fompiti River in Upper Denier River and again the number of participants and the persons who actually reside outside of the valley who came in just to witness it speaks to the level of organization we've been enjoying as it relates to our preparation for Juner Creole 2023 so I'm happy with where we are at and I want to probably profit the opportunity to ask solutions I know you have a choice in terms of where you would want to celebrate Juner Creole I invite you to come to the Mabia Valley because I am certain there you will have the most authentic product and we have done it before and we were extremely successful in hosting and I see no reason why this year we should not exceed sorry the lofty standards that we have set as it relates to hosting Juner Creole in the past I have been the Parliamentary I have been the Parliamentary representative for January North since the general election of 2011 and after three general elections the people have retained me as the individual to give voice to the aspirations of the people within the Mabia Valley and ever since we returned to government after the 2021 general election people have been asking for projects and to see certain infrastructural developments in the community I'm happy to report this morning that I have in conversation with my constituents made the point time and again that there is more to development than just concrete and steel and so in January North the average constituent can speak to a very robust a very aggressive social program where we are assisting people with scholarships we are providing back to school assistants we are helping provide medical support we are assisting the farmers we farm implements and things of that because we understand those are important and there has been a deliberate effort to push an agenda of human resource development and opportunities for higher education so today as we speak you will find young persons from the Mabia Valley from January North attending universities across the globe and almost everywhere in the world where you have St. Lucian's acquired higher education you have people from January North in that mix and I'm extremely pleased for that and I would have said to my people that they needed to be patient to see the rolling out of an infrastructure program this morning I'm happy to report to the press that as we speak the plans have been finalized for the commencement of the Austin Hill Road which had been kept in abeyance by the previous administration as we speak work has started on the Tila resource road the contract has been signed as we speak the contracts for the Apatat Road in Lapelle that has been the contracts have been signed and only this morning I was handed the bill of quantities for the Larissos Health Centre by the Minister of Health and prior to coming to Cabinet today I had a conversation with the Prime Minister who is currently out of state where the Larissos Health Centre the contract will be signed and work will start within the month of October so I want to just profit the opportunity to thank the people of January North for their patience and as I would have said to them there is absolutely no way we will not get our fair share of the national pie as it relates to infrastructure projects the Prime Minister has indicated that he is putting together a comprehensive road rehabilitation project and I know that as a constituency January North will benefit because you must look at that against the backdrop of my stint in opposition where there was a deliberate policy by the previous administration to starve opposition parliamentarians of state resources I did not have the ability as an MP who was duly elected by the people of January North to procure a single bag of cement in five plus years I did not preside over a single CDP, constituency development program that's a program where parliamentary reps are able to identify projects in their constituencies that they can provide oversight for their execution we six of us in opposition we had no such privilege and today I'm happy to report that the CDP is back and that we are getting our fair share and I'm extremely pleased with where we are at and moving forward things can only look brighter for the constituents of January North as it relates to a program that is nicely balanced with infrastructure works and social interventions of course working collaboratively with the Ministry of Equity the SSDF and all the other state agencies that operate within the realm of social development and community development so our final speaker Honourable Joakim Henry Minister for Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment will address us good morning members of the press hope you had a good weekend I'm here to share with you basically the activity which took place last week as it relates to the opening of a social housing project in my constituency in Falkland but under the auspices of the Social Social Development Fund most of you would recognise that we do have a social housing program within the Ministry of Housing we provide persons with materials but this particular project is one that is different and I wish to report to you that I think it's one that we should take note of not only that it's a duplex but it's a project built on Cronland for persons who have the Seven Advantage Church and the Blind Welfare Association will identify these individuals will only have lifetime enjoyment what has happened in the past when government bill a home for somebody who is vulnerable it's expected that the person will have a lifetime enjoyment but because of change of administration you find that the person would pass on and then family members who never cared for that person would now come and occupy and there are many government interventions around St. Lucia where maybe Cronland is aware but most persons would not be aware that a really Cron government property or taxpayers intervention that has been enjoyed by subsequent generation particularly to governments so this one in particular is very unique and of course according to Pastor Steven the Seven Advantage Church who worked with us he said his first time in history that is happening that the Advantage Church would remain the steward over the building where the individuals were housed in this property actually persons who are in need or were destitute or homeless when this individual passed God forbid then somebody else will move in under the guidance of the church and the Blind Welfare Association who is also partner to this but very important is the fact that this building is built out of 4 inch blocks and not 6 inch blocks because it's a low cost intervention and I think it's important for us to understand that as well that it's built on grid not on columns it's cheaper to build on grid than to suspend the floor and when you build on grid on the ground once the ground is solid you do not need a heavy concrete floor and I remind some of my colleagues that even the strongest areas where you have heavy traffic do not have concrete floors they basically asphalt on a solid road surface so if a home where you have just pedestrian walking and you really do not need to have an expensive heavy concrete to suspend or to support individuals walking in the house and the furniture there is what you call the live load and dead load so this intervention is a model it's pioneering in formaging that's next to Marigold and it actually provide a very low cost intervention out of concrete that the concrete blocks compressive strength of 4 inch which is as near as that of a 6 inch block wall so there is no feeling building a home out of 4 inch blocks and for those of you who may contemplate having a cheaper option some buildings in other parts of the world built out of 4 inch I see they use a lot of 4 inch bricks and not 6 inch bricks to build homes so we really have an example of a model of a low cost intervention for example and that meets the other consideration in having it remain with solutions the investment is protected by having a third party involved that being said I also need to inform you that we continue to look for areas of support for a vulnerable population of course you would have heard that the prime minister has removed the cost for ambulances for our people but also not taking any thunder from pronouncement but I know we are also discussing the issue of removing or reducing significantly the cost of having fire reports from the fire service for fire victims it was $200 and sometimes when somebody fire victim is unable to come up with $200 to pay for fire reports so that they can get their package from the Red Cross or wherever they need to get it they need to lose the passport or the ID card they would need a fire report that has been reduced to just about $50 instead of $200 so all of these areas and we continue to identify as a ministry as a ministry of equity areas that are challenging to our population to a vulnerable population so that things become easier and better yes sir previously you mentioned the initiative how is the design program made on that yes we are moving forward of course we had a meeting last week with the Caribbean Development Bank in terms of arranging to put the necessary funding in this year's budget to allocate resources for us to move forward what was allocated is really funds for the architectural component but we didn't want to just proceed with a design that is not based on consultation with stakeholders questions must be answered as to how will we incorporate or should we incorporate both girls and boys and not just have a boys training center but a juvenile center that is for both sexes the centers we have visited in the region they have both you know young boys and young ladies and they manage them as well it's costing us quite a bit to have you know two managers managing three juvenile centers each of them approximately have 10 children or 20 for the most so you have 15 at the boys training center you have at the uptown girls probably about 15 and at the transit home you have maybe 10 or 12 these are different institutions but we need to have that kind of consultation so that the professionals will guide us that certainly I find it's heavy on taxpayers for you to have these three groups of young people yet the taxpayers are paying six managers one assistant one manager and assistant manager in the three organizations so we need to rationalize that but we cannot just do it we need to do it with consultation and what cabinet has done is to approve the group that will oversee and that would advise based on what is world standard the best standard for doing a juvenile center and that the architect will use as a brief in guiding the design so we need to move very careful with this and therefore we are going to start the consultation bringing the architect we have identified the architect but that the group of individuals social practitioners people from probation police officers officers of the boys training center and the other professionals who have worked in that and those who are informed to speak to what is ideal what is best so that we provide the best a juvenile center for our young people in St. Lucia