To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, has called for uni­ty and part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go to rec­ti­fy what he has de­scribed as a long-stand­ing his­tor­i­cal in­jus­tice against To­ba­go’s pur­suit to­wards self-gov­er­nance.

In his brief re­marks dur­ing the pri­vate event A Toast to the Na­tion on In­de­pen­dence Day yes­ter­day, at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex, Au­gus­tine said, “We (Trinidad and To­ba­go) are still very much an in­com­plete project. It is dif­fi­cult for me to stand here to give a toast to the na­tion, be­ing host­ed by the THA As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture, and stand­ing in the pres­ence of se­niors in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) who served be­fore I was born, and not high­light the fact that as a coun­try one of the things we must still work on is en­sur­ing that there is eq­ui­ty and jus­tice in the con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work that will en­sure that To­ba­go gets the best kind of au­ton­o­my that it needs.”

Au­gus­tine called for the whole coun­try to join in com­plet­ing this part of the project, cre­at­ing a sense of fair­ness and jus­tice for To­ba­go and its peo­ple.

“And so at 61 years, while we cel­e­brate this project that is in­com­plete we must en­cour­age the coun­try as a whole to com­plete this part of the project where­by To­ba­go and To­bag­o­ni­ans feel as if a his­tor­i­cal in­jus­tice is ac­tu­al­ly made right,” Au­gus­tine said.

He said he re­mains hope­ful in his be­lief that at 61, Trinidad and To­ba­go is still a work in progress.

He fur­ther em­pha­sised that de­spite the chal­lenges the coun­try cur­rent­ly faces, there is still hope for fur­ther de­vel­op­ment.

Com­par­ing the age of a hu­man be­ing to that of a na­tion, Au­gus­tine ar­gued that 61 years is com­par­a­tive­ly young, and there­fore there are still op­por­tu­ni­ties and room for growth and im­prove­ment.

He said while some may ar­gue that the past was bet­ter than the present, he is con­fi­dent that Trinidad and To­ba­go is far su­pe­ri­or and in a much bet­ter po­si­tion than it was 61 years ago. Au­gus­tine high­light­ed the progress made through­out the years and the ded­i­ca­tion of the coun­try to con­stant­ly strive for im­prove­ment.

In cel­e­bra­tion of the 61st an­niver­sary, Au­gus­tine en­cour­aged those present to raise a glass to the re­silience of the peo­ple. He went on to praise their abil­i­ty to over­come glob­al chal­lenges such as the re­cent Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

He said the na­tion was able to sur­vive and adapt to dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, ul­ti­mate­ly emerg­ing stronger.

“We raise our glass­es that we have been able to sur­vive glob­al shocks like the re­cent pan­dem­ic. Last year around this time peo­ple were still wear­ing masks.

“We last­ly raise our glass to the fact that we are com­mit­ted to get­ting it right and to see­ing this project called Trinidad and To­ba­go through,” he said.

Au­gus­tine reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment, en­vi­sion­ing To­ba­go as the “great­est lit­tle is­land on the plan­et” and the “great­est lit­tle coun­try on the plan­et.”

The Chief Sec­re­tary urged To­bag­o­ni­ans to work to­geth­er to ful­fil this vi­sion and re­main de­ter­mined to cre­ate a pros­per­ous na­tion.