Na­tion­al award hold­er Wen­dell Mot­t­ley says Trinidad and To­ba­go is at a tip­ping point like the mid-1990s again. But he is look­ing for­ward to lead­er­ship com­ing from the young gen­er­a­tion.

“...The lead­er­ship that will make me feel peo­ple of my age have passed the ba­ton and we can live com­fort­ably with that thought,” Mot­t­ley added yes­ter­day, soon af­ter re­ceiv­ing the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, the coun­try’s high­est award.

A for­mer politi­cian and star T&T ath­lete, Mot­t­ley was pre­sent­ed with the award by Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes at Pres­i­dent’s House.

“It brings back mem­o­ries. It’s as heavy as my Olympic and Com­mon­wealth medals,” Mot­t­ley told re­porters, heft­ing the award in hand, post-cer­e­mo­ny.

Mot­t­ley was an­nounced as the ORTT re­cip­i­ent for this year’s 42nd Re­pub­lic Day an­niver­sary but wasn’t in T&T for the Sep­tem­ber 24 pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny.

Yes­ter­day, he was pre­sent­ed with the award, with wife Vick­ie As­severo-Mot­t­ley, three daugh­ters and grand­daugh­ter look­ing on. Al­so present were Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie.

Mot­t­ley, 77, an econ­o­mist, has served T&T as an ath­lete, en­tre­pre­neur, in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness­man and pub­lic ser­vant. In 1964 he won sil­ver and bronze medals at the Tokyo Olympics. He was al­so a gold medal­list at the 1966 Com­mon­wealth Games. He served in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, hold­ing sev­er­al min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios.

The suc­cess­ful float­ing of the TT dol­lar and re­lax­ation of For­eign Ex­change con­trols were achieved un­der his tenure as Fi­nance Min­is­ter in the Patrick Man­ning Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion. He al­so oc­cu­pied se­nior po­si­tions at Cred­it Su­isse, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank and World Wildlife Fund. He head­ed the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, Trinidad Home De­vel­op­ers Ltd, Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er en­ti­ties. Mot­t­ley al­so launched the Cit­i­zens Al­liance po­lit­i­cal par­ty, which was un­suc­cess­ful in the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tions.

Speak­ing to re­porters, Mot­t­ley added, “I’m deeply ho­n­oured (by this award), you can’t imag­ine - it touch­es me to my heart.

“I’m a na­tion­al­ist. I can think of no bet­ter re­ward for the ser­vice I gave T&T will­ing­ly. I’m deeply com­mit­ted to this coun­try. I love its by-ways, its jun­gle. I was re­cent­ly in the desert and cried out for rain, but un­for­tu­nate­ly too much came.”

Re­call­ing his work, Mot­t­ley said there’s al­ways been some­thing that’s been “dri­ving me in my ca­reer, through ath­let­ics, uni­ver­si­ty, busi­ness and pol­i­tics.” He said mo­ments like yes­ter­day’s pre­sen­ta­tion made him recog­nise there’ve al­ways been men­tors who have made his path eas­i­er.

He list­ed men­tors from his Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege and Boy Scouts days, track and field ca­reer, his old Pol­ish Catholic coach at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty and cap­tains of in­dus­try Per­cy Bain, Syd­ney Knox and Kr­ish­na Ba­hadoors­ingh.

Mot­t­ley not­ed the “old Pt Lisas crew,” Cred­it Su­isse men­tors and oth­ers like late for­mer prime min­is­ter George Cham­bers. He laud­ed ear­ly po­lit­i­cal men­tors, “peo­ple who pre­vent­ed me from mak­ing colos­sal er­rors - Er­rol (Ma­habir), Ka­mal (Mo­hammed) I re­mem­ber very, very fond­ly; more re­cent­ly, work­ing with (late for­mer prime min­is­ter) Patrick Man­ning, Lenny Saith, these were peo­ple who point­ed me in the right di­rec­tion and picked me off the floor when I was about to make se­ri­ous er­rors.”

Mot­t­ley ad­vised youths to seek guid­ance and men­tor­ship.

“Al­ways be con­scious many thoughts go through your mind, some are weak and ba­nal. But al­ways in all of us, I’m con­vinced some­thing very pow­er­ful is guid­ing us. Don’t lis­ten to the weak and ba­nal, lis­ten to that guid­ing an­gel and seek men­tor­ship. There are peo­ple out there, if you show a lit­tle spark and ini­tia­tive, will seek to help you,” he said.

Asked about the break­down of so­ci­ety and men­tor­ship spir­it with com­mu­ni­ty and fam­i­lies un­der pres­sure, Mot­t­ley re­spond­ed, “I re­mem­ber we went through a sim­i­lar try­ing time in the 1980s and 90s and peo­ple were equal­ly de­spair­ing, they thought we’d reached a dead end. I’m con­vinced we’re a ge­nius of a peo­ple, that some­thing has drawn all these races and re­li­gions here.

“This is a pow­er­ful place, some­thing guides us at the right mo­ment. I be­lieve sim­i­lar to the mid-1990s, we’re at such a tip­ping point and I look for­ward to the lead­er­ship com­ing from the younger gen­er­a­tion that will make me feel peo­ple of my age have passed the ba­ton and we can live com­fort­ably with that thought.”

Com­ment­ing on the April 1993 flota­tion of the dol­lar un­der his tenure as com­pared to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, he said, “There are times and dif­fer­ent times, we must all face and make ad­just­ments based on our time.”

How­ev­er, Mot­t­ley said he wouldn’t judge why the flota­tion was ap­pro­pri­ate for then and not for now. He said in 1993 while he im­ple­ment­ed the move, it was a col­lec­tive de­ci­sion con­tem­plat­ed be­fore that elec­tion and wide con­sul­ta­tion was done, in­clud­ing with Dr Eu­ric Bobb.

“This time, let oth­er peo­ple make those de­ci­sions and let them bear that col­lec­tive re­flec­tion,” he said.