Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

As T&T counts down to its 59th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, which will be cel­e­brat­ed on Tues­day with ac­tiv­i­ties cur­tailed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the fo­cus is on the chal­lenges the coun­try has faced over the years. Has T&T at­tained any of the na­tion-build­ing ob­jec­tives set out in 1962? Are the present prob­lems in­sur­mount­able? The Sun­day Guardian spoke to promi­nent cit­i­zens who have made their con­tri­bu­tions in dif­fer­ent fields over the years. This is what they told us:

Ger­ard Besson, His­to­ri­an:

Trinidad and To­ba­go has done well over the last 59 years of in­de­pen­dence and the coun­try has what it takes to over­come the cur­rent dif­fi­cul­ties that it faces.

Dur­ing the 1960s many oth­er colonies of Eu­rope who al­so got their in­de­pen­dence fell in­to civ­il wars and were gov­erned by dic­ta­tor­ships. Trinidad and To­ba­go was able to main­tain a free press, free ju­di­cia­ry and car­ry out free and fair elec­tions for al­most 60 years as an in­de­pen­dent coun­try.

At the same time, the coun­try made a mis­take by not de­vel­op­ing the agri­cul­ture sec­tor and di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my. These are tasks that must be fo­cused on now.

The oth­er chal­lenges the coun­try faces in­clude poor pub­lic ser­vices and a brain drain where young peo­ple go on to more de­vel­oped coun­tries for bet­ter eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties. This coun­try has a young, well-ed­u­cat­ed pop­u­la­tion and the Gov­ern­ment must har­ness these pos­i­tive at­trib­ut­es to de­vel­op the coun­try.

Af­ter 59 years of in­de­pen­dence, I would give Trinidad and To­ba­go a grade of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. We are not per­fect but we have done well. I am very op­ti­mistic about the coun­try’s fu­ture.

Dr Win­ford James,

Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist:

Trinidad and To­ba­go has done quite a lot over the last 59 years and this coun­try has the nec­es­sary tools to over­come the pan­dem­ic and its re­lat­ed prob­lems. The coun­try has made great strides in health, ed­u­ca­tion, and hous­ing.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams set out in 1962 to trans­form the twin-is­land state in­to a mod­ern and de­vel­oped coun­try by build­ing schools, ex­pand­ing uni­ver­si­ty ed­u­ca­tion, and build­ing health clin­ics. To­day, the coun­try has a suc­cess­ful par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy where peo­ple re­spect the rule of law.

De­spite the suc­cess­es, it has not been a bed of ros­es and more has to be done to im­prove the econ­o­my. The re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go is not per­fect. We still have the ques­tion of To­ba­go look­ing to be equal in terms of sta­tus. This has not hap­pened. To­ba­go needs to de­ter­mine the way it should gov­ern it­self.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has han­dled the pan­dem­ic de­cent­ly by lim­it­ing the num­ber of deaths, help­ing the num­ber of peo­ple who have been af­fect­ed by the cri­sis and in­stalling the state of emer­gency.

There is a lot to look for­ward to as the coun­try re­cov­ers from the pan­dem­ic.

Daphne Bartlett, pres­i­dent

of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion:

This coun­try is for­tu­nate to have had sev­er­al oil and gas booms over its his­to­ry which al­lowed cit­i­zens to en­joy a high stan­dard of liv­ing. How­ev­er, past lead­ers did not do enough work to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my.

We have had good liv­ing over the years with those past booms. All of the peo­ple who were squat­ting on state lands, got ca­ble tv, fridges and oth­er ap­pli­ances. The spend­ing pow­er was there as peo­ple were earn­ing from Gov­ern­ment make-work pro­grammes and pri­vate sec­tor jobs.

The down­side over the last 59 years of in­de­pen­dence is that not enough work was put in­to build­ing new in­fra­struc­ture so to­day there is wide­spread flood­ing.

Trinidad and To­ba­go will be able to over­come the cur­rent pan­dem­ic-re­lat­ed prob­lems but cit­i­zens must be­have re­spon­si­bly and get vac­ci­nat­ed.

I pre­dict the econ­o­my and so­cial sit­u­a­tion will be much bet­ter in 2022. I am hop­ing the econ­o­my will pick up. When Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brates its 60th In­de­pen­dence Day next year, we will be a much hap­pi­er peo­ple.