For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan said cit­i­zens should not do any­thing to put T&T in the hands of mul­ti­lat­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF). Ram­bachan said so dur­ing yes­ter­day's Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions at the Wa­ter­front Es­planade, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. Ram­bachan made the com­ment in the wake of threats by the labour move­ment to call a na­tion­al strike over the un­re­solved is­sue of a five per cent cap on pub­lic sec­tor wage ne­go­ti­a­tions. He said cit­i­zens must not put the coun­try in a po­si­tion "where we be­come slaves to mul­ti-lat­er­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions or the IMF or we be­come so self­ish to our own ends that we de­ny cit­i­zens from be­ing al­lowed to come out of pover­ty." Ram­bachan said cit­i­zens must rise to­geth­er or fall to­geth­er.

He said as the na­tion cel­e­brat­ed Eman­ci­pa­tion, cit­i­zens should spare a thought for the poor and the dis­pos­sessed. "Let us be will­ing to give up a lit­tle so that every­one in this coun­try can en­joy pros­per­i­ty," Ram­bachan added. He said the peo­ple of T&T had ne­glect­ed some of their tra­di­tions and have ac­cept­ed the pre­dom­i­nant val­ues of the "id­iot box" (tele­vi­sion). He said, how­ev­er, that cit­i­zens should nev­er ig­nore their tra­di­tions but seek to re­dis­cov­er them in or­der to ben­e­fit the en­tire na­tion. The cel­e­bra­tions were host­ed by the Min­istries of For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, En­er­gy and Labour.