GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

As she pre­pares to end her du­ties in T&T, US Am­bas­sador Can­dace Bond at­test­ed that ties be­tween this coun­try and the US have been fur­ther strength­ened in many mean­ing­ful ways.

Bond, who ar­rived in T&T two years and two months ago, main­tained that her team is com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ing its strong work with the Gov­ern­ment of T&T in en­forc­ing cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, pro­tect­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, bol­ster­ing cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty, pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, and en­sur­ing the pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights.

Bond, who de­liv­ered re­marks at a re­cep­tion host­ed by the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T (AM­CHAM T&T) at Port-of-Spain on Fri­day night, said, “To­geth­er, we have ac­com­plished re­mark­able things for the bet­ter­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. From en­hanc­ing our eco­nom­ic ties to en­hanc­ing our se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion to fos­ter­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al ex­changes, we have strength­ened our bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship in ways that I hope will have last­ing im­pacts.”

The event took place at 137 Long Cir­cu­lar Road, Mar­aval—for­mer­ly Coun­try Club—which will serve as the new site of the Unit­ed States Em­bassy.

Not­ing that the new fa­cil­i­ty will re­dound to en­hanced ser­vices among oth­er of­fer­ings, Bond added, “I know my team looks for­ward to a near fu­ture when all our work is go­ing to bloom from this spot, right here—this site of our fu­ture em­bassy home. We are go­ing to have a large-scale, beau­ti­ful cam­pus right here. It will of­fer a much-im­proved ex­pe­ri­ence for those who have busi­ness to con­duct with us, for visa ap­pli­cants, and for diplo­mats and staff who will work from this new space.

“The de­sign, plan­ning and con­struc­tion of the cam­pus is go­ing to cre­ate plen­ty of jobs for lo­cal peo­ple and will have a pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic im­pact.”

The US am­bas­sador al­so shared her deep love for this coun­try as she rem­i­nisced on her many in­ter­ac­tions, which made it all mem­o­rable.

“I will miss the sound of mu­sic every­where—so­ca, parang, ca­lyp­so. I’m tru­ly go­ing to miss the limes—cool­er limes, jun­gle limes, limes of any sort. Car­ni­val sea­son, all the fetes, J’Ou­vert, Can­boulay and Car­ni­val it­self. I’ll miss play­ing mas and cel­e­brat­ing the rich cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty of T&T. Don­ning rich silks for Di­vali, throw­ing pow­der dur­ing Holi, wear­ing my African pride prints on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, or feel­ing the peace and seren­i­ty of the Eid at If­tar cel­e­bra­tions. The rich­ness of your di­ver­si­ty and your deep sense of na­tion­al pride shine among the beau­ti­ful mo­sa­ic of faces. All, for­ev­er burned in­to my con­scious,” she added.

Stu­art Fran­co, pres­i­dent of AM­CHAM T&T, who al­so spoke, agreed that over the past year, un­der Bond’s lead­er­ship, col­lab­o­ra­tions have led to some re­mark­able ben­e­fits for mem­bers, in­clud­ing a high-lev­el meet­ing with the chair of the US Ex­port-Im­port Bank, Re­ta Jo Lewis, fol­low­ing the US$500 mil­lion MoU signed be­tween the Ex­im Bank and T&T. This part­ner­ship is de­signed to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic growth, im­prove na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and cre­ate a more vi­brant busi­ness cli­mate.