 In my role as parliamentary representative for Castery's South-East constituency and minister in the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment, I have experienced many successes as well as challenges. It would be remiss of me if I did not take this opportunity as we bring 2023 to a close to place on record my profound appreciation and gratitude for those who have contributed to both of these in one way or the other. I say thanks for both the successes and the challenges because my successes have taught me to repeat the actions that brought success and my challenges taught me to revamp, revisit and review, in other words, to will and come again. Firstly, I want to thank the constituency council and the constituents of Castery's South-East for their continued support and understanding since I assumed the role of their parliamentary representative. Serving is enjoyable, but not always easy, especially when you would like to meet the needs of everyone. Yet there are limited resources to meet the demands and often times as parliamentary representative I find myself with headache and heartache of deciding who needs the help first and most. It is a daunting task, but in many cases my constituents who request I have had to delay understand my predicament and for that I am very grateful. I want to assure them that I have the best interests at heart and will do all I can to address the needs in due course. Also, my ministry's mandate is a very important one because we are responsible for the plight of many underprivileged persons in society among other work and I truly believe that we have made great strides in addressing the needs of that community. This would not have been possible without the support and commitment of the employees of my ministry and I seize this opportunity to express my appreciation to all managers and line staff of the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment. I want to recognize the support staff of my ministry as well as the heads and staff of various agencies under my ministry for catching the vision and working towards accomplishing it. My dear administrative assistant, Ms. Tenj, my attache, Mrs. Andrew, for keeping me organized and of course my dedicated driver.com for leading me in the right direction, literally. I want to wish my cabinet colleagues, the staff of my ministry, my constituency and all sentlosions a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as we look forward to brighter seasons. God bless us all. Thank you.