Two of the coun­try's ma­jor busi­ness cham­bers paid trib­ute to for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly yes­ter­day.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce in a state­ment said, "Mr. Pan­day, a for­mi­da­ble fig­ure in our na­tion’s his­to­ry, has left an in­deli­ble mark. From his ear­ly days in the la­bor move­ment to be­com­ing the fifth Prime Min­is­ter in 1995, he pas­sion­ate­ly fought for caus­es he be­lieved in, leav­ing a lega­cy that tran­scends po­lit­i­cal bound­aries."

The TTCIC said, "His ad­vo­ca­cy for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, com­mit­ment to in­dus­tri­al peace, and ini­tia­tives in ed­u­ca­tion, en­sur­ing sec­ondary school ac­cess and pro­mot­ing ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, show­case his far-reach­ing in­flu­ence."

"His lega­cy as a states­man and pa­tri­ot for Trinidad and To­ba­go will long be re­mem­bered," the state­ment closed.

The Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AM­CHAM T&T) al­so is­sued a re­lease, stat­ing, "Mr. Pan­day has in­deed left an in­deli­ble mark on our coun­try. As a politi­cian, al­though the re­la­tion­ships weren’t al­ways smooth, he main­tained a broad­ly busi­ness-friend­ly pos­ture while at­tempt­ing to link eco­nom­ic growth with so­cial de­vel­op­ment, prob­a­bly most no­tably through the widen­ing of ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion."

Am­cham con­tin­ued, "While his pass­ing is in­deed a loss for our na­tion, his last­ing lega­cy will con­tin­ue to leave its mark on many gen­er­a­tions to come who will, no doubt, study, de­bate and build on his work of ad­vo­cat­ing for in­clu­siv­i­ty and the cre­ation of a more just so­ci­ety for all."

The re­lease end­ed, "AM­CHAM T&T ex­tends our deep­est con­do­lences to Mr. Pan­day’s wife, Oma, and four daugh­ters, Niala, Mick­ela, Nico­la, and Vasta­la dur­ing their pe­ri­od of grief and sad­ness."