 Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my deep sadness and concern about the people who are badly affected by the tragedy which occurred on 6 November 2022, where hundreds of persons were affected due to the flooding. We need to thank the Lord because he spared the lives of those who are badly impacted. The government is committed to assisting the victims as best as we can. I need to commend my colleague parliamentary representative for Grozily for his lion's approach in dealing with this flooding nightmare. I know he sincerely cares for his constituents. To the people in the Babono constituency, especially the farmers who lost an entire investment on the farms, I understand your plight, pains and frustrations. So please do not give up. Let us support each other and start all over again. The government will try to assist to help you to get back on your feet. Mr. Speaker, my minister's statement today is to give you a brief update on the situation at the border lake correctional facility and the efforts of the home affairs department in combating crime in St. Lucia. Mr. Speaker, this government has a plan and a strategy to combat crime in St. Lucia. The plan is designed more at prevention by engaging in building the human resource capacity of its people and creating opportunities to involve the citizens in productive activities. Mr. Speaker, while many persons focus on the number of murders and other criminal activities on the media, especially social media, I am here to present a balanced view of what this government has been doing to combat crime and to keep all the St. Lucia citizens safe and to reduce criminal activities in this country. I want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to the families of the nurse who met her demise as a result of a criminal activity. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report that as of November 4th, 2022, a new director for the border lake correctional facility was appointed in the person of Mr. Boongan. He had served at that institution before and this is an indication that he is more than ready and prepared for the task at hand. Since his appointment, the director has already reported on the immediate actions he has taken to start the restructuring of the institution to make it more effective and efficient. Mr. Speaker, the director has conducted many meetings with persons working at all levels in the institution including the inmates. Mr. Speaker, the border lake correctional facility has to be transformed into a real reform or correction facility where the focus will be on rehabilitation using intelligence driven and skills development to reduce the level of recidivism which is over 40%. That is, the number of persons who are released from prison about 40% comes back into the prison. We have to reduce that and with rehabilitation we need to get this back into the society so that they continue to be productive citizens. Mr. Speaker, at present the institution has a population of 522 inmates with 505 males and 17 females. 184 males are penal and 322 are unremanned. There are 14 females who are penal and 3 unremanned. There are 199 staff members operating at the institution. Mr. Speaker, in recent times within about two weeks ago we were able to collect contributions on confiscated cannabis, charges for phones, cell phones, batteries, cigarettes and weapons at border lake correctional facility. It is not easy to keep these inmates under control. So I commend the officers for the work that they do in the institution in order to ensure there is discipline, there is law and there is order. Mr. Speaker, you will recall that I reported to this honourable house and inform you Mr. Speaker that the government had commissioned a review of the border lake correctional facility. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report that this report has been submitted to the Government of Ministers over two months ago. The findings of the report were discussed with the management at border lake correctional facility. It was also discussed with the new director who assumed the position recently. So we have a very clear path on how we approach the challenges at border lake correctional facility. Mr. Speaker, the report has some interesting recommendations which cause for stronger leadership, improvement in communication, repairs to the infrastructure of the institution, need for greater security, more rehabilitation programs for inmates and corrective measures. Mr. Speaker, there is a need for greater collaboration with other support services to strengthen the capacity for rehabilitation program to make border lake correctional facility a truly correctional facility. We need to reduce the percentage as I mentioned of the number of persons who continue to return. Mr. Speaker, I will repeat it again because a few years ago before this government came in office, the last government did not allocate money in the budget for training of officers in the protective services. Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that this government is committed to develop a very effective and efficient public service and therefore has allocated over hundreds of thousands of dollars to recommend training for police correctional officers at border lake correctional facility, the fire service, the marine unit and the probation and parole unit. So far Mr. Speaker, the training has started among police officers, correctional officers, marine unit officers, fire service officers and probation and parole officers. Mr. Speaker, this government under the strong and visionary leadership of Honorable Prime Minister who has started putting the available resources in the right places. There is a very profound statement which I would like to quote Mr. Speaker. No one is safe until everyone is safe. We have to commend our law officers who are employed in the protective services for the sacrifices they are making on a daily basis, both night and day, to keep all of us safe. Mr. Speaker, this is a country where we need to do all that is possible to keep all of us safe and secure. Some people can laugh but no one is safe until everyone is safe. And this nurse who in the line of going ahead and doing her daily chores met her demise who would have believed that this is what would have happened. And we cannot take this as a light matter. It is a very serious matter. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Kusinta Deskap Peleus on her appointment as the new commissioner for police in an acting capacity. I want to commend Honorable Prime Minister for having the vision in appointing a woman as police commissioner. This happened to be the first time a woman has ever been appointed to the position in St. Lucia as commissioner thereby making history. Mr. Speaker, you will not imagine what I saw on national television after the appointment of the first female commissioner of police. HTS conducted an EPOL and there was 100% endorsement of the prime minister's decision and selection of the commissioner. Mr. Speaker, on the side, no wonder the prime minister's party at his annual general meeting he received 100% support from the delegates who voted for his endorsement. Well, there are some who can hold the convention or AGM yet. So we don't know what the outcome will be. We see greater support while the government has invested in vehicles to help the police move around. There are plans to build a brand new police divisional headquarters in Grozile and the major repairs for the divisional headquarters in Viewfort. Training for police, training for officers were over 40 new officers were recruited in the fire service. Money is being spent to improve communications and security at the bodily correctional facility. Training for the marine unit, new office space was acquired for the probation and parole unit. Ongoing repairs in mostly all the police stations and fire stations. Isn't that a government who cares? The marine unit will also be getting its attention with regards to repair and improvement to electrical installation at the facility. Mr Speaker, we are currently experiencing changes at the top leadership in the police force. The bodily correctional facility, the fire service, the marine unit and very soon there will be a change at the probation and parole unit. We call this the changing of the guard and we expect to build stronger leadership in the corrective and protective services so that we can combat the issue of crime, law enforcement and greater discipline in our society. Mr Speaker, this government is more than ready to bring about the necessary changes to make St. Glusha a safer and better environment for all of us to live and to become very productive in our society. Mr Speaker, this government under the leadership of a group of competent men and women, I make no apologies for that, is on the right path to complete recovery from COVID-19. You know what did that did to our country. We had disasters, some call it island, some call it economic, they are disasters in all areas, so we have to recover from that. We need to raise the hope of St. Glusha people, all of them by putting our people first and invest in the future, especially the youth and the elderly. Mr Speaker, as we are about to observe the 16th day of activism starting from November 25th to December 10th, which is the time the whole world is calling for an end to violence against women. And what are we witnessing today? The demise of a woman. We have too much violence in this country. We need to manage our anger and learn to love and care for each other. We need to share and show concern for our neighbors, friends, co-workers and try to live in harmony with each other. We need to show concern for the less fortunate and share the little that we have among each other. Mr Speaker, we have to help those who became victims of the recent flooding in the north of the island. The gender affairs department, which is another department under my watch, has secured about 1,000 dignity kits to distribute among the flood victims as a form of support to them. Mr Speaker, with the help of the Almighty God and the support of the people all over the island and those at the regional and international levels, we will grow from strength to strength in a peaceful, safe and secure environment to live and work together as productive citizens. Mr Speaker, we have to help those who became victims of the recent flooding in the north of the island. We have to help those who became victims of the recent flood in the north of the island. We have to work for the island, we have to work for the borderline and we have to work for the government to protect us. Government has to help people to help the situation. We have to help those who are not victims of the flood.meal�� ê ê ê ê ê ê ê ê ê intendo ê ê We have a responsibility to ensure that we secure our country, our helen of the west, the most beautiful island in the western days. We are winning awards and awards and we cannot make her unsafe for our citizens and our visitors. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for listening.