Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says while the cit­i­zens of T&T cel­e­brate its gold­en ju­bilee to­day, they must pre­pare for "dan­ger­ous days ahead" and "treach­er­ous ob­sta­cles too." Row­ley made the ob­ser­va­tion in his In­de­pen­dence ad­dress to the na­tion, which was broad­cast on tele­vi­sion last night. He said the coun­try must be put back on track and the time will come when as lead­ers "we will be judged way be­yond the bound­aries of the bal­lot box." Row­ley said:?"As we cel­e­brate, let us to­geth­er fo­cus on the road that con­fronts us. Let us move for­ward as one peo­ple." Af­ter speak­ing favourably about the na­tion's achieve­ments over the past 50 years, Row­ley said much more must be done to fur­ther de­vel­op and ad­vance the twin-is­land re­pub­lic.

He said there re­mained a need to re­store T&T to moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues. Row­ley said many lead­ers and par­ents in T&T have failed to show the right ex­am­ples for the youths of the na­tion. Row­ley said the Par­lia­ment would be a good place to be­gin the trans­for­ma­tion of T&T. He said cit­i­zens felt that the qual­i­ty of de­bates in Par­lia­ment were "not suf­fi­cient­ly en­light­en­ing or up­lift­ing." He then is­sued a call to all par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to "take the lead by en­hanc­ing the qual­i­ty of de­bate in the Par­lia­ment." He said there should be no "ma­lign­ing, de­mon­is­ing, slan­der­ing or scor­ing cheap po­lit­i­cal points."