Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has called on cit­i­zens to cel­e­brate the things that make T&T great. 

In his In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage, Row­ley en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to con­sid­er the achieve­ments of the coun­try over the past 62 years com­pared to coun­tries af­fect­ed by geo-po­lit­i­cal is­sues. 

“Maybe here, in this com­par­i­son, notwith­stand­ing the many dif­fi­cul­ties that we have to con­front dai­ly, we may bet­ter ap­pre­ci­ate our over­all achieve­ments, our re­silience as a peo­ple, our nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al won­ders, and the beau­ty and rich­ness of this land, called Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said

Not­ing that this coun­try sets an ex­am­ple of racial har­mo­ny and re­spect for each oth­er, which must not be dis­missed or un­der­stat­ed, Row­ley added: “This unique facet of T&T has caused some ob­servers to de­scribe our in­ter-racial re­la­tion­ships as “un­com­mon”.

“What­ev­er our race or sta­tus, our unique, col­lec­tive Trin­bag­on­ian spir­it stands out, wher­ev­er, be­cause we al­ways ex­pect to be en­joy­ing and en­hanc­ing our dai­ly lives, pro­tect­ing our free­dom, cel­e­brat­ing our mu­sic, our dance, our food, our fash­ion and, of course, our Pan.”

He ac­knowl­edged that the coun­try was not im­mune from vi­o­lent crime caused by fam­i­ly dis­putes, mean­ing­less al­ter­ca­tions and gang cul­ture. 

“Yet, look­ing deep­er, we can iden­ti­fy and praise what we call ‘The Trin­bag­on­ian’ - our col­lec­tive spir­it in which we hold a tran­scen­dent re­spect for the Almighty, along­side an ea­ger will­ing­ness to dis­play kind­ness, self­less care, com­pas­sion, re­spect, love, shar­ing with fam­i­ly and friends, and ex­tend­ing trust to strangers, as fel­low hu­mans all wrapped in a dai­ly am­bi­tion to be bet­ter,” he said.  

Row­ley de­vot­ed a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of his mes­sage to high­light­ing ini­tia­tives un­der­tak­en by his gov­ern­ment since be­ing elect­ed in 2015. He point­ed to vo­ca­tion­al and skills train­ing be­ing of­fered by the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice. 

“The agri­cul­ture projects are ex­cit­ing ini­tia­tives which have al­ready pro­duced their first grad­u­ates and first har­vests,” he said, not­ing that 1,500 young peo­ple are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit over the next year. 

Row­ley al­so praised the coun­try’s ro­bust so­cial ser­vices. 

“Thou­sands of our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from so­cial grants, so­cial ser­vices, free health­care and med­i­cine, in ad­di­tion to Gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies for wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty, trans­porta­tion, and ed­u­ca­tion grants,” he said. 

He men­tioned the re­struc­tur­ing of the State en­er­gy com­pa­ny Petrotrin and deals with Venezuela for the de­vel­op­ment of nat­ur­al gas fields on the bor­der of both coun­tries. 

“These projects will boost this coun­try’s de­clin­ing gas pro­duc­tion, will sus­tain the plants on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and are the ba­sis for the Gov­ern­ment’s op­ti­mism and hope for our se­cure fu­ture,” he said. 

Row­ley stat­ed that in­fla­tion is be­low one per cent, the un­em­ploy­ment rate was 4.1 per cent last year, and the coun­try’s ex­ter­nal re­serves and Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) are ap­proach­ing US$6 bil­lion. 

“So, to­day as we cel­e­brate our In­de­pen­dence 62, I ask that all cit­i­zens join me in com­mit­ting to this op­ti­mistic spir­it,” Row­ley said. 

“I as­sure you that your Gov­ern­ment is ful­ly en­gaged as we ad­dress all the ma­jor is­sues while point­ing to the re­al prospects for a brighter fu­ture,” he added.