(Trinidad Express) – Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says Trinidad and Tobago must stop blaming its problems on its colonial past and accept responsibility for the decisions made during the 64 years since Independence.
In her Independence Day message, issued on Sunday ahead of Monday’s 64th anniversary of Independence, Persad-Bissessar said the country needed to confront its post-Independence history honestly and acknowledge that it should have performed much better.
“We must confront our post independence history with honesty and acknowledge that we should have done much better over the past 64 years,” she said.
Persad-Bissessar said Trinidad and Tobago entered Independence in 1962 with a strong economic and institutional foundation inherited from Britain.
She pointed to the country’s per capita income at the time, saying it was higher than that of several countries, including Japan, Chile, Greece, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Portugal, Mexico, Turkey, Iraq, Brazil, Malaysia, Iran, Morocco, Taiwan and China.
“Almost all of these countries have now superseded us,” she said.
