Six­ty-four years af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go at­tained po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence from Britain through the lead­er­ship of Pre­mier Dr Er­ic Williams and the sup­port of Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Rudranath Capildeo, it is fit­ting that we re­flect on our na­tion­al jour­ney and as­sess how far we have come.

In­deed, there is much we can be proud of as a na­tion as we mark In­de­pen­dence Day to­day.

Since 1962, T&T has forged a dis­tinct na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, cel­e­brat­ed its rich cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty, fos­tered re­li­gious and so­cial tol­er­ance, and de­vel­oped in­fra­struc­ture far be­yond what ex­ist­ed at the end of colo­nial rule.

Ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion has ex­pand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, pro­duc­ing gen­er­a­tions of pro­fes­sion­als, en­tre­pre­neurs and skilled work­ers whose tal­ents have dri­ven na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Our roads, schools, hos­pi­tals, air­ports, sea­ports and com­mer­cial cen­tres stand as tan­gi­ble ev­i­dence of decades of in­vest­ment and progress.

Among our most no­table achieve­ments has been the growth of the en­er­gy sec­tor. The ex­pan­sion of the oil in­dus­try and the de­vel­op­ment of a glob­al­ly recog­nised nat­ur­al gas and petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try have po­si­tioned T&T as a ma­jor en­er­gy pro­duc­er. Built on the ex­per­tise of skilled tech­nocrats and sup­port­ed by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments, these in­dus­tries have gen­er­at­ed wealth, cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties and shaped our in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion.

We must al­so recog­nise 64 years of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance and the peace­ful trans­fer of po­lit­i­cal pow­er through free and fair elec­tions, in­ter­rupt­ed on­ly by the at­tempt­ed in­sur­rec­tion of 1990.

In a world where many post-colo­nial states con­tin­ue to grap­ple with po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty, this re­mains one of our strengths.

Yet our na­tion­al sto­ry is not one of un­qual­i­fied suc­cess.

The spir­it of uni­ty demon­strat­ed by Dr Williams and Dr Capildeo dur­ing the Marl­bor­ough House ne­go­ti­a­tions, which helped con­vince Britain that Trinidad and To­ba­go was ready for self-gov­ern­ment, has too of­ten been over­shad­owed by po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry and eth­nic di­vi­sion. These frac­tures have weak­ened the col­lec­tive pur­pose em­bod­ied in our na­tion­al mot­to: To­geth­er We As­pire, To­geth­er We Achieve.

Per­haps our most trou­bling fail­ure has been our in­abil­i­ty to shield too many young peo­ple from the lure of crime.

Gen­er­a­tions have been ex­posed to crim­i­nal net­works, in­ad­e­quate sup­port sys­tems and lim­it­ed path­ways to op­por­tu­ni­ty. The prob­lem has been com­pound­ed by per­sis­tent al­le­ga­tions that in­di­vid­u­als in po­si­tions of pow­er and in­flu­ence have en­abled or ben­e­fit­ed from crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, erod­ing pub­lic trust in key in­sti­tu­tions.

Through both ac­tion and in­ac­tion, we have left too many vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens be­hind while al­low­ing the con­di­tions that nur­ture crim­i­nal­i­ty to en­dure. The con­se­quences are ev­i­dent in ris­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty, weak­ened so­cial co­he­sion and con­straints on eco­nom­ic growth and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

As we com­mem­o­rate our 64th year of In­de­pen­dence, we must ac­knowl­edge that the un­fin­ished work of na­tion-build­ing can­not be de­ferred in­def­i­nite­ly or passed on to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

To do so would risk squan­der­ing many of the gains achieved since 1962.

Po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence was a defin­ing mile­stone. The next chap­ter of our de­vel­op­ment de­mands a re­newed com­mit­ment to uni­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty. It re­quires cre­at­ing a so­ci­ety in which every cit­i­zen has a mean­ing­ful stake and a gen­uine chance to suc­ceed.

On­ly then will we tru­ly ful­fil the promise of In­de­pen­dence.