Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day ful­filled an­oth­er chap­ter of her long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Ltd work­ers, pre­sent­ing leas­es for agri­cul­tur­al land at Pic­ton 1 to more than 200 of them.

Speak­ing at the Sun­dar Popo Au­di­to­ri­um in the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), Per­sad-Bisses­sar framed the dis­tri­b­u­tion as both a sym­bol­ic and tan­gi­ble act of jus­tice for those whose liveli­hoods were up­end­ed when the sug­ar com­pa­ny was shut down un­der a pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“In this Sun­dar Popo house, we turn mem­o­ry, dig­ni­ty, and sac­ri­fice in­to a fu­ture our chil­dren can in­her­it,” she told the au­di­ence, not­ing that many of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries had wait­ed decades for their promised lands.

“When I make a promise, I do my best to keep it. To­day, we do more than re­mem­ber; we re­pair, and we re­build.”

The Prime Min­is­ter re­called the clo­sure of Ca­roni (1975) Ltd in Au­gust 2003, which she said “rup­tured liveli­hoods and com­mu­ni­ty life,” leav­ing skilled work­ers un­em­ployed and en­tire dis­tricts fac­ing eco­nom­ic de­cline. She paid trib­ute to those who had passed away with­out see­ing this day, say­ing, “We re­mem­ber those who could not be here to­day.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­tailed the achieve­ments un­der her Gov­ern­ment since first tak­ing of­fice in 2010, in­clud­ing the al­lo­ca­tion of 3,062 agri­cul­tur­al leas­es, 3,097 res­i­den­tial deeds, and over 1,000 res­i­den­tial lots.

She, how­ev­er, lament­ed that progress slowed af­ter 2015, when “board­rooms gave way to court­rooms,” prompt­ing her to per­son­al­ly lead le­gal ef­forts from 2017 to se­cure full en­ti­tle­ments for ex-Ca­roni work­ers.

She reaf­firmed her pledge to set­tle out­stand­ing monies owed to cane farm­ers by 2025.

Turn­ing to the younger gen­er­a­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­cour­aged the chil­dren and grand­chil­dren of lease­hold­ers to see their in­her­i­tance as a “launch­pad” for in­no­va­tion in mod­ern agri­cul­ture.

“Nev­er be ashamed of your roots,” she urged.

“Mod­ern agri­cul­ture is a sci­ence… You can scale your work, cre­ate prod­ucts, and turn your land in­to rev­enue. Make ‘Grown in Pe­nal’ a land­mark.”

She em­pha­sised the po­ten­tial for gen­er­a­tional wealth, urg­ing re­cip­i­ents to treat their leas­es “like a lega­cy” and promis­ing gov­ern­ment sup­port for de­vel­op­ing agri­cul­tur­al en­ter­pris­es.

“A na­tion is judged by those who built it,” she said. “To every cane farmer and child of the sug­ar belt—you were nev­er a line item to me. You re­main a back­bone of this na­tion. To­geth­er, we can turn hurt in­to hope and hope in­to har­vest. Take this deed and claim your fu­ture.”