 We saw from the recent release from the CEO of the regional CPL body that Saint Lucia benefited hugely from the hosting of CPL last time around and we will continue to do just that. Saint Lucia is one of the premier grounds in the region. St. Crofton continues to do good work in preparing the Darren-Sami cricket grounds and especially the pitch for the Batting Paradise that it is and of course bowlers who bowl in the right areas could also enjoy success in Saint Lucia. So we always look forward to it developing more and more coming over COVID, COVID I think the numbers don't lie, I mean millions watched Saint Lucia during CPL especially in the Indian market and we are expecting a lot more to continue to watch Saint Lucia. The British market is another one that we do very well with when it comes to cricket development and sport really is the biggest catalyst to advertising Saint Lucia in the world. Julian Alfred, the name is synonymous with females sprinting success and so you can try any measure and if you speak to the Minister of Tourism and he is honest to you, he will tell you the best way, the absolute best way to market Saint Lucia right now is through the exploits of our young men and women and sports is really the direction that will ensure that Saint Lucia continues to enjoy economic benefits and really do what we need to do to you know create employment in our tourism market and industry for our young people. Definitely, but how do we go about admiring it to the whole aspect of sports and tourism? How we learn enough to really so if we are putting in enough sports stories and to publish? Well, there's never enough, we need to continue to explore all aspects and this is why I've been having a lot of conversation with the cycling association because we know in a French territory in the region, in Guadeloupe, there's a huge cycling culture and we truly want to see a cycling take off to where it needs to be to really tap into that sports tourism niche. The problem with cycling in Saint Lucia and its development, there was no sort of collaboration between infrastructural development and cycling and so you find that cyclists do not have a safe haven to practice their trade and so we are looking at the option of developing a velodrome for cyclists in Saint Lucia and thereafter ensuring that we can have some regional tournaments and we know in Martinique they travel by droves hundreds for cycling. Also in terms of long distance running marathons it's another area where we can collaborate with the Ministry of Tourism to get some half marathons, some marathons during our weekend calendars and bring in some more persons to the beautiful shores of Saint Lucia. Well the Ministry of Sports have been very excited about our school sports program. You will be seeing on the 31st of May the inter-schools of finals taking place at the Soufrem Ministerium. There were a lot of things that needed to be cleared up. First of all on behalf of my ministry I will say that we did our part in the consultative process of ensuring that the Ministry of Education was finished with the venue, the date and time for our tournaments. I've heard some of the massinations in the public domain that the Ministry of Sports did not consult. It falls under the remit of the Ministry of Education who had a representative at every venture on the development committee and the strategic committee for school sports as part of the organization towards Intersect to provide and furnish that information to the teachers, the principals and the athletes. Of course the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports is responsible for the technical aspect of the inter-schools, the venue, the transportation and ensuring that the event runs smoothly. Similar to CPL on those events the Ministry of Tourism is one who negotiates packages for CPL and regional tournaments in Saint Lucia because it's tourism centered and then the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports deals with the technical aspects of the venue preparation and the dynamics on the ground for the events. And so I want to make it abundantly clear that I'm very proud of my ministry's exploits in trying to as much as possible have the inter-secondary school sports competition held on the weekend as was discussed more than a year ago. But we had some issues with the Chief Education Officer not being present at our meetings because of some resignations under the Ministry of Education which did not allow the communication process to be smooth. I'm very proud of my ministry's exploits and we are certainly hoping to have a very good event on the 31st of May at the Souffre Mini Stadium. In the budget we will be discussing the semi-professionalization of football. People are very excited that for the first time in Saint Lucia's history footballers will be paid to play football. I am jealous because I'm the Minister along with the Prime Minister pushing the agenda and I would look back at my times waking up very early in the morning to get my 40-minute jog and then ball drills with coaches like Francis Barbalastic and of course later on at the end of the 17th level is Stuart Charles and training so very hard and never been paid a dime. And I'm very excited that in the budget this year you will hear the Prime Minister's pronouncements for the semi-professionalization of football in Saint Lucia. It's a step in the right direction and I think our young people can benefit from knowing that they don't have to be on the blocks. They can come play some football and get some compensation and of course eventually you would see the physiotherapists those who want to get involved in videography and the other aspects of sport entertainment could definitely benefit from that commercial activity. Also in the budget we'll be seeing a lot more competitions. You should be seeing basketball having a Prime Minister's Cup and of course there'll be some player compensation. I think player compensation is where the Prime Minister really wants to go with the youth economy and netball is going to get an injection as well and so I'm excited about about those activities. Along with the traditional cricket competitions we expect an SPL to come back in a big way and cricket has been compensated for their activities and so we'll also be talking about venues and the development of venues this year. Almost 10 playing fields will be emacked for lighting and sitting programs so that we can bring the fans in the stadium. The Mendephale Park and Darren's Army as we know are two very very critical aspects of venues for development along with the gardens and VG playing field and Wendt playing field in the south and so we'll be seeing a lot in the budget to really continue to develop sports and I think we all here are confident that when we look back 10-20 years from now we will know when sports really took off in this country. Simpsons Carriage and Delegation will be off for long from now. What kind of role will your ministry play in ensuring that our best will be... our best will represent the Ireland at the upcoming competition and your words to the team that will be off in a few weeks time? Naomi London, Naomi London, Naomi London. The Viewfort native has been under our trading program for the better part of a year now under the elite program. We've ensured that we as much as possible provide as much support for her to excel. We see her as one of the huge prospects going forward as you would know her times at the age of 14 and 15 are actually faster than what we saw from Julian Alfred which says to us that we have a huge prospect in Naomi London and we certainly hoping that she will bring home the bacon this time. She had a very good show in last year along with some of the other athletes that we see coming on stream. The ministry continues to provide training for coaching, the coaching development program in collaboration with the Cubans to try to prepare our athletes the best we can. I just received the invitation it's the 50th Carrefter Games and so I'm putting it out there in the public domain that was invited to attend the 50th Carrefter Games and the other ministers in the region will be in attendance to really lend our support to Carrefter, the Carrefter movement and the athletes that they've developed so we really expecting our athletes to come out to trumps this time around. Let me put you on the spot. One of your staffers, recently a couple of weeks ago, was officially recognized by the country for his role in terms of nurturing signature athletes over the decades. I'm speaking of more than one. Your response to his commendation and the my response is that I mean every St. Lucian who's called me on this has said how shocked they are that this was not done before. Cofbert Twatidemodes was the national coach when I first represented St. Lucian at the age of nine. He was the actual national coach. So every athlete including the likes of Darren, Sami, Levone, Spencer, they would have had some councilor interaction or interface with Cofbert Twatidemodes and when this government came in and we looked at the vestige and we realized that Cofbert Modes had not been commended for his work towards the development of our athletes including Julian Alfred McKibber, Al Schafer. I mean we said as a government that we had to correct a wrong and we ensured that he was given that honor. And so congratulations to Twatidemodes as I know him very strict individual. We certainly hope that his work continues in the central castries and the St. Lucia area in Convent as a P coach, as a coach. We know about his commitment and we just want to as a ministry say that the other individuals that have been developing sports in St. Lucia will be given their time to shine as well. Okay, just looking at the board, what challenges do you see with this adventure? I think there's a chronic lack of professional referees but the St. Lucia Football Association through their licensing program, I know they've trained over a hundred de-licensed coaches and they are available in St. Lucia right now. They've trained a cadre of C licensed coaches as well and I see the semi-professionalization of football actually helping with further getting B licensed and even A licensed coaches that could pretty much be on an international level from St. Lucia. And so of course you know when you're doing something for the first time you will have glitches. I'm expecting and anticipating some, it's like a pilot for the first year, some challenges but I'm very confident that the semi-pro league will be something that as time goes by people will gravitate towards more and more. I think coaching is good, I think physiotherapists will be needing some more of that in St. Lucia. I think it just opens the door for anybody who wants to get involved in sports and you have a talent and a desire to really come to the fore right now. I'm not worried about coaching. I would say as a minister the level of refereeing and of course the crowd response to refereeing is something that we've always had challenges with and I certainly hope that we as a nation we would come together to really see the benefit of what we are doing right now in sports. Yes we've been having some challenges with the app simply because you know you have the different platforms, the Apple store and the Play Store and that has been rectified and so we're expecting more and more persons to go to the app and provide the information that will form part of a database to ensure that we provide the skills, the training and more opportunities for our young people. The unemployment issue is something I take very seriously as the minister of youth and I know the prime minister as the minister for youth economy as well and we certainly hoping within the two year period that we can see a huge turn in events that will allow our young people to be more confident in the system and they decide to go towards employment rather than the guns that we see developing throughout our country. So Jason Nair is from the EAS. With the recent passing of legislation just to help you guys in the world I guess crime fighting efforts. Just tell us how has this bolstered the efforts and including the RSS being here on Island and just crime fighting on a war. Just tell us about your efforts and initiatives on the what the government has done to really help you guys. How has this affected your crime fighting strategies and the lead in the crime law. Sorry sorry no because I'm confused. So for the record my name is Ronald Phillip deputy commissioner of police in charge of strategic operations. RUNALDPHILLIP. Just in terms of the government's efforts in helping you in your crime fighting strategies how has this affected you guys? You referring to the legislation? The legislation and everything that they've done including the RSS here and everything that they've done to support the crime fighting initiative. Okay just for the record Senutia is part of the original security system. We have the we have officers from friendly governments down Nica, Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada. I'm during tandem with our local police officers so we have officers on the ground in terms of trying to help de-escalate the crime situation that has happened especially over the last few weeks. So far I can see that the operations seem to be moving smoothly. Residents are very pleased especially residents of you for the very happy with what you're seeing. The police we have intensified our efforts with intensified patrols we have engaged in more searches so so far the operations are going on smoothly. And the legislation that the government has enacted how does this help your efforts? Well we're very happy with the legislation because it gives the police more powers to operate now that the area is declared an escalated crime area police officers can once police officers are operating in good faith it is important to note that the legislation speaks to good faith. So once police officers are operating in good faith it gives police officers more search powers in terms of the arrests how long somebody can be detained for. So this is good for law enforcement. There have been questions about the trampling of human rights with this legislation as well. How is this affecting you in terms of trying not to trample on these rights and enacting your duties as a legislator? Well as I know we are a professional police organization and during our briefing we always speak we always speak to officers in terms of respecting the rights of others. Again the legislation does not speak to violence in human rights. It's specifically that officers who act in good faith and acting in good faith for want to act in good faith they must they must uphold the values of the police officers which speaks to professionalism. So again we're not our again if persons have any complaints if they think that their rights have been trampled on there are mechanisms in place there is the police complaints unit if you figure that the police officer do something wrong you can't take your grievances to a lawyer so these mechanisms have always been in place but the the issue we're dealing with is not one where we're going to antagonize everybody but the point is we persons have human rights activists have their job to play and the police have their role so this is not going to deter our efforts we employ our police officers to act professionally but we are not going to we are not going to be too perturbed by the complaints again we respect we respect persons human rights the officers are encouraged to be professional but that is not going to deter our efforts if there is if we have reason to believe that something is good is happening or taking place we are going to act. Okay, can you just give us some update in relation to arrest? We know that we had a release where a number of individuals was detained. Can you tell us what has happened since? Have they arrested or charged anybody in relation to the shooting? Yes so far police we have arrested and charged a 22-year-old Arinato Sume for the for the murder of Lauren Sievery that occurred on the 9th of March 20th so one person has been arrested for one of the murders and being charged. We are again we are working on several leads we require some of our investigation we require some level of DNA but we are actively pursuing those cases and individuals. So so far from the operation but yes I mean one person has been charged for hunting drugs they know there are about seven homicides so what about the like I said to you the investigations are active investigations the police police is called we are currently coming out investigations from the operations is not just for the homicide we have also arrested individuals of FIAM we have arrested individuals of ammunition possession of ammunition we have arrested individuals of drugs. But in terms of the makeup of the team I will not give it up for the police how does it work do you all have a team do they reside in V-fort is there calm is there how do you do this? Well what I can tell you we are adopting a blended approach so we have an infusion of local police officers along with the original officers you may see them primarily in V-fort but they are operating island-wide they based in Sanusha. Okay it's the 555 it's a new hotline where persons members of the public could give information to assist the police in crime fighting and of course the the identity will remain unknown we have put in place some code a special code so when you give the information once we mention giving you some compensation if you give volunteer information there is a particular code in place we have it a way where persons will not know who are the who are the ones volunteering the information there is a code in place so when you give the information you'll be given a code and you could determine whether it's a priest or whether it's somebody involved in citizens security like Mr. Dr. King could give you your compensation not necessarily the police we have not we are not involved in you know giving you the compensation where it is so designed that without you will know your identity will not be known you will decide how you collect your compensation as it relates to the code that you'll be given of course if we get information of course that's what we want to assist us in crime fighting we are determined to make St. Lucia a better place and whatever information we can get to do that we are going to welcome it is Jerry were you asking something Jerry that will be determined based on the information received we cannot tell you right now what amount will be given it will be determined based on the information received and of course how how how good this information is I think one of the main concerns from citizens of the public is that when the police publish let's say a wanted poster for an individual his or her image is not attached to it and so the question is is that something deliberate or is it something we're looking into or or just attaching an image of something that's wanted by the police it is something we have we're going to discuss we want to we have started this question in that regard and as soon as we have decided what we're going to do is regard will give you an update from me just in terms of the RSS being here we understand that it is an escalated crime situation what happens with the departure of the RSS in the following weeks what mechanisms are in place to ensure that strategy remains as deputy philip indicated before the motive for the motive the objective of RSS is for RSS states to work together to fight crime anything that threats national security that will be that'll be threatening national security that RSS of course believes that together unity when we are strengthened when they're together we have strength bringing our resistance in lucha does not mean that the men and women in the police force they're not capable of doing their work it gives us the opportunity especially now with the escalation of crime we will have more numbers in the ground so officers will be involved in patrolling doing operations to deal with the threats of national security whilst we can and remember in as much as they we are concerned about viewport right now we are concerned about st lucha its entirety so with the increasing numbers we can focus on viewport and as well focus in during this time on other areas in st lucha so it is a good thing that we have RSS to assist us in what is happening now at the same time it enables us to to return normalcy to the citizens of st lucha especially in the southern part of the island of course i don't think corruption is unique to any one organization um i've said before if i am aware of any matters dealing with corruption within the organization i have zero tolerance for it and i'll be dealing with it so we have nothing has been brought to my attention and of course if anything is brought to my attention rest to show i'll be dealt i'll be dealing with it we are we are ways there are ways of dealing with corruption within any organization and the police force is not unique you can do your investigations and of course we have the you can do internal and you can of course take it to another level there's also been the issue of like jason mentioned corruption etc generally um even with instances like this where we're sitting here and we're having a press briefing any plans as part of the strategy to strengthen the relationship with the police and the press as it relates to more press briefing or interactions of keeping persons in the loop as much as it is strategically feasible of course we are ever ready to to work with the press of course how can we inform st lucha what we are doing if we don't work in the press we have we have not in any way shown any indication that we are not willing to go to the press we will continue having our press conference as a matter of fact we might be having one soon so there's no way that we are not going to work in the press we are determined to go to the press as long as there's a need to pass on the information to put on st lucha there's nothing to indicate that we are not willing to go to the press i don't think we have done anything is there anything we have done to indicate that madams yeah but do you think but one more thing i think too um sometimes when it comes to the press as well do you do you think there's anything you could do better to work with us in terms of the relations the information we give you sometimes absolutely i like that we're switching absolutely i also think there is um some details i remember having a conversation sometimes with the director of gender relations and she was making reference to it was around the time violence against women and she said that they'd seen a marked increase in some of the violence cases based on some of the stories that were portrayed in the news i do think that um the angle of certain stories and how we report certain stories may or may not have a positive or negative impact and that is directly related that is in commission that we would be able to talk to you from the police in terms of um i'm not always but um i think there has to be closer dialogue not just what we see but what it is that we want to set in terms of what areas that they focus is um there is the i wouldn't say um it's popular but it is the tendency for sensationalization in the press there is but i think more than anything while we don't need your strategy but we also need to be in the know us you know what is happening what is happening and then it might be you call the arrest yeah oftentimes we it's not feasible um we don't get a command only hey i'll call you back and that doesn't happen sometimes we have to go on the facebook page you know it's okay well it's often times yeah so it there there is effort on part but it is not always it's not always feasible to okay well we're hoping that moving forward we could we could work together and of course of course when you do get the information we are hoping that the way it is so it could be so it could be both ways but we're looking forward to better of course better dialogue with the press yes it's in a lot more activity in the substitution because people have complained yeah but as as we've said before i mean you don't expect the police to be everywhere every time we try our utmost best to respond to the calls when we get it with the um rss teams being here it doesn't mean that there'll be less activities at the various substation as i've indicated before with rss you have we have there's just trend friend us and put them on numbers on the ground so we're hoping to continue to address the issues of crime in this country whether it's in the south where we have the issues at all levels at substations on a national basis because we want better first inclusion we are not in any way happy with what is happening in this country we are not we want to of course um ensure the public that we're doing our utmost best and we are determined to make a difference we are determined to bring this country back we are determined to take our country back from the criminals we are determined and we'll do everything our power lovefully to take back this country and our and i can guarantee you that our officers are competent enough to do that and i want at this time to really thank them so much our officers have worked very hard and we as a citizen must show some more appreciation to our officers we and some more respect our officers are doing very working very hard to ensure that our country is a better place st lucia is a better it's a very beautiful place it is not fair what's happened how do you feel as a st lucia and doing something to disrupt us happening in this country if we did not have if we do not if we don't stop this issue of crime we will not get the put the the health centers that we want we'll not get the hospitals that we want we'll not get better roads because if the we we depend heavily on on on tourism there are other countries who are doing well in in terms of tourism and if we if we continue in this vein it is not maybe our officers won't get paid as well we need to take back our country everyone and it is not the responsibility of the police we need the efforts of everyone very often they ask what is the police doing what the officers are doing if your teacher asks yourself what are you doing if your nurse asks yourself what are you doing if your citizen of the country asks yourself what are you doing if your mother asks yourself what are you doing we all can play a role to make st lucia better it is our responsibility yes we are law enforcers we've been paid for a job but to keep st lucia better in the better state is all of our responsibility we can do better than that and we ought to do it let us be some more patriotic let us take back our country sons and daughters of st lucia st lucia is beautiful but we can do better than that to take our country are you satisfied with what was what is going on right now within the force and and trying to get the assistance from general public the the level of of cooperation i'm satisfied with what we were going now internal with the the support from all levels from all around from the executive from the from the reserve officers to the executive we all are playing our role to make st lucia better i'm also satisfied this we get of course don't get me wrong we get support from other agencies but i'm just saying that to make st lucia a better place we all must work together and we have to ask ourselves are we satisfied can we do better than that can we do better than that so we all must work together to get st lucia better i'm determined my team we are determined to make st lucia a better place i know you mentioned that there is strength in working together but how do you propose that we first or build a better relationship between the police and the community and the rest of the cities it's just a matter you see you look at what you have and you review there's always room for improvement you look at the strategy you have now we have now and of course right now as we speak we are reviewing our community relations um um strategy we need to work more with the police and the public working together we need to work more together hand in hand so if we are doing one thing say the ministry of education and the police let us review what we are doing now to see how we can make it better to deal with the youth if we work in the teacher the the nurses does work together to see what we can do the community teachers the parents we can work together to see what we can do parents need help in raising their children so what can we do to assist the parents or what can be done in a holistic manner not just with the police rather but generally to assist the parents in how they raise the children so it's something we need to take seriously this is our country this is our country people we need to take back our country the people who are committing the crime they're not the large number it's a very small number are we going to turn our backs on St. Lucia we can do better than that and we need to take our country back because the prime minister mentioned um the first of these recent binaries are major interests i just have to get this one but i'm happy you're saying that but though they are challenges we are determined and of course the government the prime minister many sort of cabinet they have come prime minister has given us the assurance that the areas that are beyond our control they will give all the assistance to make it make our challenges easier holding facilities holding facilities CCTV cameras you know everything to make our work easier and of course i have no reason to doubt that he will give us the assistance because we are already getting the assistance to make our work easier yes yes my commissioner you mentioned the importance of the tourism sector to service yeah and lately i've noticed that the grizzly street party is having a you know patrol with officers in green but what about the um the arrangements with the i know there has been some moving around from the grizzly to the Rodney Bay in terms of the original how how smooth is that working out what i'm happy that you've seen the difference at the Rodney Bay street so the other areas we are discussing how we can make it easier how we can have more officers police in these areas we are looking at the beaches uh you know police more rangers in place so there are different things we are doing as it relates to making the different areas safer for citizens and for visitors as well because at the end of the day even if i know that we are heavily dependent on tourism we are not making state literature safer only for visitors we are making state literature safer for citizens and visitors as well