Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has paid trib­ute to her five pre­de­ces­sors for their ser­vice to the coun­try. T&T was priv­i­leged to have a coloured po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry and for­tu­nate to have unique and in­spir­ing per­son­al­i­ties as prime min­is­ters, she told guests at the 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence Ball host­ed by House Speak­er Wade Mark and Sen­ate pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith at The Ball­room, Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre on Fri­day night.

Sev­er­al past and cur­rent politi­cians, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corps, busi­ness­men and oth­er of­fi­cials at­tend­ed the gala event and were en­ter­tained by artistes such as Singing San­dra, Lu­ta, Nali­ni Akal and Neval Chet­lal. The PM said: "This evening, as we com­mem­o­rate the jour­ney to in­de­pen­dence from 1962 to 2012, I pay trib­ute to each and every one of the for­mer prime min­is­ters for hav­ing bold­ly pur­sued and won lead­er­ship, for hav­ing served the coun­try well as heads of gov­ern­ment."

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was not present but MP for Laven­tille East/Mor­vant Don­na Cox spoke on be­half of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived around 9.15 pm while guests were still en­joy­ing din­ner. She had ear­li­er vis­it­ed the Trinidad Mus­lim League mosque at St Joseph where she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the break­ing of the fast and prayed with the women. She?greet­ed guests be­fore giv­ing her speech at 9.55 pm.

"This is a time for us to pay trib­ute to our his­to­ry, to give thanks for where we are and to share in our very pro­found hopes for a fu­ture of con­tin­ued peace, sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty. "Where I stand to­day, oth­ers have stood be­fore," she said. "When our Par­lia­ment was in an­oth­er place, each of my five pre­de­ces­sors brave­ly took the stage when their times had come to take charge."

She said each pre­vi­ous prime min­is­ter-Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers, ANR Robin­son, Patrick Man­ning and Bas­deo Pan­day-ex­e­cut­ed their roles to the best of their abil­i­ty. The PM al­so praised past house speak­ers, sen­ate pres­i­dents, lead­ers of the op­po­si­tion and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans who made in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to pre­serve the prin­ci­ples of the par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy.

"For as much as we fought and dis­agreed in the Par­lia­ment, her­ald­ed and praised and even at times looked on with doubt and con­ster­na­tion over the years, all of our for­mer lead­ers, pres­i­dents and speak­ers, they did what they be­lieved to be right and hon­or­able and con­tributed to strength­en­ing of our par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy," she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked that a mo­ment's si­lence be ob­served for de­ceased politi­cians such as Mor­ris Mar­shall, Sham Mo­hammed and Leo De Vi­gnes. She said T&T was built on their shoul­ders.