Michelle Loubon

Chair­man and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of ANSA McAL Group of Com­pa­nies A Nor­man Sab­ga says the con­glom­er­ate will con­tin­ue to in­vest in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He made this com­ment while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the cer­e­mo­ni­al seal­ing of the ANSA McAL?time cap­sule. It took place at Tatil Build­ing, Mar­aval Road, Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day. Its theme was with Bound­less Faith.

Among those present were pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion Har­ryper­sad Ma­haraj, the com­pa­ny's chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer Ger­ry ?Brooks, sec­re­tary of the ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion Maria Su­perville-Neil­son and oth­er dis­tin­guished cit­i­zens. Sab­ga, Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing and Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Bhoe Tewarie placed en­velopes con­tain­ing as­pi­ra­tions in the cap­sule. Tewarie placed the as­pi­ra­tions of T&T's first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. It is ex­pect­ed to be opened in 2062. The event co­in­cid­ed with T&T's?50th an­niver­sary In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions.

Sab­ga said:?"We (ANSA McAL)?have put full faith in the econ­o­my. We con­tin­ue to ex­pand op­er­a­tions and in­vest in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We will con­tin­ue to strive to be bet­ter cor­po­rate cit­i­zens. We are proud to be lo­cal, proud of our em­ploy­ees and, proud of our suc­cess glob­al­ly." "It is a priv­i­lege that thou­sands of peo­ple have a sense of pa­tri­o­tism when they sim­ply have a Carib beer in their hand, be it here in or in Lon­don, Eng­land. It iden­ti­fies them as be­ing a true Trin­bag­on­ian. Our brands are world renowned."

5,000 flags for em­ploy­ees

Sab­ga al­so spoke about the com­pa­ny's plan to dis­trib­ute 5,000 na­tion­al flags to ANSA McAL em­ploy­ees. He said:?"Very soon, we will dis­trib­ute 5,000 flags. Our na­tion­al flag (red, white and black)?is no doubt the most po­tent and vis­i­ble sym­bol of our pride in Trinidad and To­ba­go. And it rep­re­sents what it means to be a cit­i­zen of our coun­try." He made ref­er­ence to Olympic medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott and Olympians like Lalonde Gor­don and Marc Burns, who rep­re­sent­ed T&T?bril­liant­ly on the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na.

"It is our hope these flags will speak for us and re­mind us of our com­mit­ment to pre­serve the val­ues we com­mit­ted to 50 years ago as they are dis­played in the homes of our em­ploy­ees through­out the length and breadth of T&T." He said he hoped cit­i­zens would as­pire to im­proved stan­dards of liv­ing and ed­u­ca­tion. The so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment should be en­gen­dered against the back­drop of a so­ci­ety that has be­come in­creas­ing­ly glob­alised, di­verse, mul­ti-re­li­gious and mul­ti-cul­tur­al.