 Welcome to the Government Information Services Week in Review, I am Alicia Ali. We begin with the news that the Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Senator the Honourable Dr. Ubaldas Raymond and the Director of Economics for the Caribbean Development Bank, the CDB, Dr. Justin Ram, reveal the findings of a joint Caribbean Development Bank and Eastern Caribbean Central Bank report on St. Lucia. St. Lucia, like many of the other Caribbean countries, and I should say that the Caribbean Development Bank has 19 borne member countries within the Caribbean, so that like those other 19 borne member countries or 18 borne member countries, St. Lucia also exhibits some of the same problems that we see across the region, and that is the economy is characterised by low growth, reflecting a high concentration in exports, as well as very high and growing indebtedness. Now, as I said earlier, the Government of St. Lucia has articulated its desire to reverse these trends. The Government is very serious about growing this country, I mean growing the economy, and we believe that we should not be doing it alone, we should be able, we should be in consultation with the public and moving forward to where we have to go. So we want to be very open, very transparent in achieving the various objectives, social and economic objectives that we have for the country. The Republic of China, Taiwan presented a check to the Government of St. Lucia for the new phase of the 2016 Constituency Development Program on Monday. Prime Minister of St. Lucia, the Honourable Allen M. Shasne, says the advance will be used to pay for projects that were completed in several constituencies. All of this money is actually going to be used to pay for projects that were implemented over the last four months. So I am very grateful to you in terms of expediting this payment because this payment was not due for some time, and it is certainly going to go a very long ways, Ambassador, in being able to bring relief to some of the people who did work and who have yet to been paid for that work. And I know that the Ministry of Economic Development is assessing all of the work programs and will be looking to make sure that the people that did work are paid. The Prime Minister went on to praise the program's accomplishments. The Constituency Development Program has been a significant input into the lives of solutions, and it has allowed constituencies to develop projects, as we said, in a T-can al-basis, to allow monies to be dispersed in their constituencies, but more importantly, to develop a sense of pride in that people from those constituencies have actually been participating in improving the infrastructure in their own communities, whether it be through sidewalks, whether it be through basketball facilities, lighting in the football fields, improvement in health care. All of those have gone an extremely long way. During this phase, St. Lucia will receive US $5 million, a check for US $4 million, which forms part of the first part of the funding, was given to the government on the 19th of September. The Taiwanese government is expected to hand over another portion of the fund in October. With a $4,000 case backlog and staffing constraints at the Attorney General's chambers and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Prime Minister Hon. Alan M. Shastney says St. Lucia's judicial system is worrisome to the new government. Prime Minister Shastney says he did not get a full picture of the dire, straight St. Lucia's judicial system was in until he assumed office. We've just recently been downgraded in our human rights ranking. And we have the continuation of the impacts and also now Lambert's. So in my own research, we're seeing that the human rights issue has been predominantly driven by the Lambert's situation. And you have to take it from how people perceive it on the outside, that while the case has been proceeding, it does not appear that the government is putting up a sufficiently good defense. And so a lot of international organizations don't just measure us on the result of the case, but they look at the ability of the government to be able to try the case. The Prime Minister stated that the executive arm of government has failed its judicial counterpart. He says he is trying to assuage the situation as best he can. And that is why I took the unprecedented step that when I came in and met with the judiciary and realized the complications that had arisen because all the courts were all around St. Lucia and the perception of disorganization that we offered the judiciary to be able to move into the new financial center. So there have been architects and engineers and interior decorators working to determine the quantum it would cost to be able to transform the financial center into the new courthouse. Prime Minister Shasne says the court indicated that spacing would be an issue with the financial center and has since declined the offer. Additionally, the Prime Minister announced that the post of Director of Public Prosecutions was upgraded from a grade 20 to a grade 21, which has given leeway for a one-year contract appointment. Still on news from the Office of the Prime Minister, Honorable Allen M. Shasne says the island's deficit is larger than anticipated. And as such, he says he has spent his first 100 days in office working on a plan to reduce St. Lucia's debt-to-GDP ratio. Prime Minister Shasne says the new government's term in office began by understanding that this year's budget grossly underestimated some areas such as school maintenance and operationalizing the new hospital. He noted that had those overheads been accurately catered for, the country's deficit would increase. According to the Prime Minister, St. Lucia needs a major boost in investment immediately. I have taken upon myself to have as many meetings as the Prime Minister to try to be able to expedite investment in this country. Desert Star is a very ambitious project. I admit that. I think that the developers themselves have a great sense of confidence. I love the creativity of what they have done. And I think to be able to jumpstart St. Lucia and to create a buzz about St. Lucia, that is the kind of project that we need to be able to stimulate. Prime Minister Shasne says St. Lucia's current finances have restricted his ability to institute reform. We have had a very difficult time in being able to establish control of the government. We've been confronted with some unprecedented things. I don't think there's ever in the history, I know, of parliamentary government or Westminster government in which an Attorney General would be appointed by a former government. Ambassadors who have contracts that have no out clauses, investors that were signed up two days before the election with no out clauses in the contracts. And so I've not had the opportunity of moving quicker because obviously there are legal issues and we have to always follow the rule of law. Prime Minister Shasne says St. Lucia's can't expect a four-year plan in April 2017. The time scale that I'm working towards right now is that we're using this time right now to develop our overall plan. And so it's the intention of our government that when we announce the budget in April, that we will announce obviously a one-year financial budget, but we're going to announce and roll out a four-year development plan for this country. The Sir Arthur Lewis Community College commences its transformation into a university. A work plan to effectively transform the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College into a university is progressing smoothly as a technical team met recently to discuss the way forward. The meeting was aimed at providing team members with background information and outlining the roles of SALCC and the teams in the transformation process. Institutional Effectiveness Manager Sonia Severin highlighted the importance of the orientation sessions. The orientation sessions, this is the first of the orientation sessions. We plan to have four of them because we are establishing 16 technical working teams that would lead the work in a variety of areas related to governance, administration and program management. May Severin express confidence that the technical team's involvement will result in achievement of the aims of the transformation process. The process starts from this point forward. The teams are responsible for developing and implementing a set of outputs and as they develop and those outputs go forward for approval, once they are approved, we would then begin to implement them as part of the work of the college. Current transformation activities are aimed at developing the SALCC's organizational capacity to enable the institution to function effectively as a university. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Education, Innovation, Gender Relations and Sustainable Development, I am Fennel Neptune reporting. The SALCC started implementing its Forest Air Housing Development project. The sub-turning ceremony for the project was held on the afternoon of Tuesday the 20th of September 2016. The development will consist of 65 lots on 15.3 acres of land. Present at the ceremony was the Minister for Economic Development, Housing, Urban Renewal, Transport and Civil Aviation, the Honourable Guy Joseph, who commented on the government's aim of elevating the standard of living in St. Lucia. We have an aim to make housing more affordable and I want you to understand this. The government will subsidize some of the housing projects because we believe that there is a direct correlation between people's thinking and the outlook of life and the conditions under which they live. Also present at the ceremony was the Minister for Equity, Social Justice, Empowerment, Youth Development, Sports, Culture and Local Government, the Honourable Leonard Montute and Timothy Mangal, Chairman of the NHC. Government House located at Montfortune is being fitted with a solar photovoltaic system through the generosity of solar head of state. The system will allow Government House to partially operate on renewable energy, saving the country hundreds of dollars in electricity costs per month. This began in earnest in 2010 with the endorsement of a new energy policy, which committed several things. One, to diversify the energy base away from fossil fuels, two, exploit indigenous renewable energy sources, reduce adverse environmental effects and pollution from the energy sector, foster an environment to facilitate and improve a sustainable energy supply network with sufficient incentives to encourage private sector investments. And to establish an appropriate regulatory framework that would do two things. One, set clear guidelines for investors and two, to protect the interest of consumers. The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers arc is in its 31st edition. This November, a group of young, highly talented local sailors are on an incredible mission. Their goal is to make history in becoming the first solution team to take part in the racing division and compete at the highest level of the competition. So the tourist board is fully behind the event and we've developed an exciting schedule to make this year 2016 a memorable one for us with regard to the ARC. For the first time in the history of our coming here, 27 years, a group of very enthusiastic, talented young sailors have come together. And I want to say they are family, I was, let me stand corrected, they're not just a sailing team but they are family and they are embarking on a very serious mission. And this mission is to become the first solution racing team to take part in the racing division of ARC. We are family and we're very motivated to work hard at it. And I think this would be great for the yachting sector and I think they would really develop the racing aspect of sailing in St. Lucia. And that's a weekend review from the Government Information Service. I'm Alicia Ali.