KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

From re­li­gious leader, to politi­cians and the busi­ness sec­tor, Christ­mas greet­ings poured in yes­ter­day as peo­ple sent their wish­es of hope for a bet­ter to­mor­row for Trinidad and To­ba­go in terms of crime, busi­ness and gov­er­nance.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don said, “My Christ­mas mes­sage is one of peace, joy and good­will and to re­al­ly pray for peace in homes, peace in fam­i­lies, peace in our com­mu­ni­ties, peace in our land Trinidad and To­ba­go, that we will be blessed with peace dur­ing this Christ­mas time.”

Bish­op of the An­gli­can Church, Claude Berkley, said, “We pray that the love that we have for one an­oth­er would be felt as is usu­al, giv­en the fact that the econ­o­my has had us in a cer­tain kind of pres­sure point. I pray that we will still be able to share as we have shared be­fore and look out for one an­oth­er in the true spir­it of Christ­mas and there­fore wish­ing the na­tion a safe and hap­py sea­son and ask­ing that they re­mem­ber the rea­son why we have Christ­mas ...

“For the new year, I pray that we are able to col­lec­tive­ly as a na­tion re­duce crime, the mur­der rate in par­tic­u­lar. That we can ex­hort the lead­ers to come to­geth­er and try to cre­ate the best plat­form that we can to treat with this very se­ri­ous is­sue among us. And, more than that, that those per­sons who are on the mar­gins would be able to find sus­te­nance, that the means of re­lief for those at the low­er ends of our eco­nom­ic lad­der would be able to find liv­ing and to chart a way for­ward for them­selves and their fam­i­lies. A hap­py pro­gres­sive and pro­duc­tive new year for all.”

He added that pub­lic health­care should be strong­ly fo­cused on and im­proved for all cit­i­zens.

With the pan­dem­ic fi­nal­ly com­ing to an end this year, busi­ness­man Derek Chin said, “2023 of­fered an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­sol­i­date our busi­ness­es af­ter what was a very dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od from 2020 through 2022, the pan­dem­ic years. Peo­ple want­ed to ex­hale and get their lives to some de­gree of nor­mal­cy, so we saw an im­prove­ment in our en­ter­tain­ment and hos­pi­tal­i­ty of­fer­ings.

“How­ev­er, the grow­ing scourge of crime, and it ap­pears to be un­abat­ed, has place a damper on the re­cov­ery es­pe­cial­ly with night life and such types of en­ter­tain­ment. Peo­ple are liv­ing in fear and don’t ven­ture out too late any more. The ris­ing prices and rise in the cost of liv­ing has al­so made mak­ing ends meet very dif­fi­cult for the av­er­age cit­i­zen and busi­ness are chal­lenged to bal­ance their op­er­a­tions. We are see­ing a lot of tur­moil in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and one re­al­ly has to be con­cerned with all the con­flicts and in­jus­tices all around us. These will def­i­nite­ly af­fect our over­all well be­ing as a coun­try and we need shrewd but cre­ative lead­er­ship to man­age our coun­try through what is go­ing to be a very tough 2024, but still with op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“I would like to see more out of the box poli­cies and to lead in­stead of fol­low­ing to cre­ate a more dy­nam­ic Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Al­so speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce CEO Stephen de Gannes said, “One of the more pos­i­tive as­pects of 2023 was the agree­ment fi­nal­ly of the op­po­si­tion and the gov­ern­ment to col­lab­o­rate on how crime could be dealt with more holis­ti­cal­ly. While it is yet to ac­tu­al­ly take place, it is a move­ment to­wards more col­lab­o­ra­tion for the bet­ter­ment of the na­tion.”

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said, “2023 was an im­por­tant year for Trinidad and To­ba­go in the in­ter­na­tion­al sphere, as we con­tin­ue to fo­cus on el­e­vat­ing our na­tion­al pro­file, and to lever­age our at­trib­ut­es, our im­age, our cred­i­bil­i­ty, our po­ten­tials, and the strength of our diplo­ma­cy in a man­ner that the en­tire na­tion can ben­e­fit from and be proud of. This is a tes­ta­ment to the en­dur­ing lega­cy of team­work, lead­er­ship, vi­sion, and the abil­i­ty to re­main calm and fo­cused in spite of myr­i­ad tests and chal­lenges. For 2024, I wish to re­cruit more qual­i­ty diplo­mats in­to our for­eign ser­vice, as we work to­geth­er to max­imise our ef­fec­tive­ness and ef­fi­cien­cies, and to en­sure that ex­cel­lence de­fines every­thing that we do in the sec­tor. I would like to in­volve our school chil­dren more, with the aim of build­ing wider ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the val­ue of diplo­ma­cy, tact, re­straint, in­tegri­ty, and the preser­va­tion of peace. Our next gen­er­a­tion must un­der­stand that dis­re­spect is the surest sign of weak­ness, and learn that class is not a com­mod­i­ty that can be pur­chased.”

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said, “We have had no ma­ter­nal deaths so far for the year. No longer are our women dy­ing at the rate of one per month. My grat­i­tude to the staff at our ma­ter­ni­ty hos­pi­tals. We now have two PA­HO ba­by-friend­ly ba­by hos­pi­tals. San­gre Grande and Mt Hope. These are ma­jor achieve­ments. My wish­es for 2024, a so­ci­ety that works with the Min­istry of Health mak­ing healthy habits a part of our dai­ly lives. Peace and bless­ings to all.”

On the oth­er side of the bench, the Op­po­si­tion said it hoped T&T can have bet­ter lead­er­ship next year.

Oropouche East MP Dr Rood­lal Mooni­lal said, “The hap­pi­est mo­ment for 2023 is when the UNC beat the PNM in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. I wish for an ear­ly elec­tions to get rid of Row­ley and the PNM.”

MP St Au­gus­tine Khadi­jah Ameen said, “The best part about of 2023 for me was see­ing the in­roads the UNC made in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. Be­ing on the ground and hear­ing the cries of the peo­ple in dif­fer­ent parts of Trinidad. So my wish in 2024 is sim­ply for a new gov­ern­ment. We have to get the econ­o­my on track so peo­ple can have mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment. We need op­por­tu­ni­ties for our young peo­ple in sports and tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al skills so they won’t fall prey to gangs. We need hos­pi­tals where peo­ple won’t have to sleep on the floor in emer­gency for days and wait­ing lists for surgery in­to next two years. And we all want the blood­shed, the mur­ders to stop. We want safe com­mu­ni­ties. I am not look­ing for­ward to 2024 un­der PNM.”