Cari­com Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr. Car­la Bar­nett has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Trinidad and To­ba­go on the oc­ca­sion of its 63rd an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence.

In a mes­sage to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Dr. Bar­nett ac­knowl­edged the coun­try’s role in shap­ing Caribbean cul­ture through mu­sic and lit­er­a­ture, de­scrib­ing it as a source of pride for the re­gion. She al­so not­ed T&T’s achieve­ments in the en­er­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors.

Dr. Bar­nett high­light­ed the coun­try’s long­stand­ing in­volve­ment in Cari­com since its found­ing, com­mend­ing its con­tri­bu­tions to de­ci­sion-mak­ing and lead­er­ship with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty. She point­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for En­er­gy and Se­cu­ri­ty in the Cari­com Qua­si-Cab­i­net as an ex­am­ple of its re­gion­al lead­er­ship.

The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al al­so recog­nised the part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Cari­com in sup­port­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es, cit­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty’s de­ploy­ment of an Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sion to the coun­try’s Gen­er­al Elec­tions in April this year.

The con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage em­pha­sised that the re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and Cari­com re­mains strong, re­flect­ing shared val­ues of in­te­gra­tion and co­op­er­a­tion.

Dr. Bar­nett ex­tend­ed best wish­es to the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go for con­tin­ued progress as they mark the 63rd year since achiev­ing in­de­pen­dence.

T&T be­came an in­de­pen­dent na­tion on Au­gust 31, 1962 and is a found­ing mem­ber of Cari­com. The in­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary will be ob­served on Sun­day with na­tion­al events across the coun­try.