 Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Economic Growth, Job Creation, External Affairs and the Public Service Hon. Alan Shasne will on Tuesday 16 March 2021 present St. Lucia's Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for 2021-2022. This will follow the opening of the 6th session of the 11th Parliament on Tuesday morning where members of the House of Assembly will meet at 10am and members of the Senate will meet at 10.30am after which both Houses will be in joint session to receive the throne speech from His Excellency, the Governor-General, Sir Emmanuel Neville Snack. The Standing Finance Committee will meet in closed session at 2pm to review the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, following which at 4pm the Prime Minister will lay the Estimates before the House of Assembly. The Prime Minister says the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure and the Subsequent Appropriation Bill are being presented at a difficult time. However, government has been able to maneuver the tough environment brought on by COVID-19. Government he noted has not defaulted on loans, continues to pay salaries and meet other obligations. Nevertheless, there is tremendous uncertainty about how quickly the economy will recover from the impact of COVID-19. Government has had to give a lot of concessions to small businesses, medium-sized businesses and large businesses to offset the losses. And so we've absorbed those losses by not charging taxes on a lot of issues. So what government's final revenue position is going to be is still very much up in the air. But what we can say is that a continuation of building a new St. Lucia, a continuation of fixing the infrastructure, a continuation of making ourselves competitive, I mean all this week we were talking about the Headquarters Act, the residency program, and expediting our financial sector, the orange economy. We have a tremendous amount of confidence in it. So there is an allocation for events. We're hoping that we can see at least one event come back this budgetary year. But we feel very strong that Carnival will come back strong next year. So there will be an event probably to celebrate something as well as being a launching pad to promote our events for 2022. Prime Minister speaking there during the GIS COVID-19 year in review production. Hon. Shaste emphasized government's determination to build a new St. Lucia as he noted the advancing of several projects including home porting in Viewfort, the National Health Insurance, St. Jude's Hospital and the expansion of the social safety net in providing assistance to the vulnerable. The social net program we're going to be putting in which will be much broader than it has been before. So the continuation of infrastructural building and infrastructural is not just about roads and buildings but it's about institutional strengthening, about policy strengthening. Our police officers, the police headquarters, the continuation of the digital cameras, the CSI unit, the crime scenes investigation unit that we're going to be opening up. We just got new engines for the Marine Police going to the border control. So as I said to you this year really is a continuation of a lot of the things that we've already started and despite COVID is to give solutions the assurance that we have made the fiscal space available and the human resources available and continue to prioritize those programs. The debate on the estimates of expenditure will begin on Wednesday, March 17th, 2021 from 9 a.m. Please note that in keeping with the protocols established by the authorities for the management of the COVID-19 crisis, members of the public will not be allowed in the chamber gallery during the sittings. The public can view the live proceedings on the National Television Network Channel on 22, that is NTN, as well as the government of St. Lucia Facebook and the YouTube platform.