Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made a call for Trinidad and To­ba­go to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its post-in­de­pen­dence de­ci­sions, say­ing the coun­try must stop blam­ing its on­go­ing prob­lems on its colo­nial past.

In her mes­sage to the coun­try mark­ing the 64th an­niver­sary of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­de­pen­dence, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the twin-is­land re­pub­lic must con­front its his­to­ry with hon­esty and ad­mit that “bet­ter” could have been achieved over the past 64 years.

“When our coun­try emerged from British colo­nial rule to de­ter­mine our own des­tiny, we had a high­er per capi­ta in­come lev­el than Japan, Chile, Greece, Spain, Hong Kong, Sin­ga­pore, Por­tu­gal, Mex­i­co, Turkey, Iraq, Brazil, Malaysia, Iran, Mo­roc­co, Tai­wan and Chi­na. All of these coun­tries have now su­per­seded us,” she said in her mes­sage post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar went on to say that Trinidad and To­ba­go was left in a very “pros­per­ous” state when the coun­try be­came free of British colo­nial pow­ers.

“At that time we had a well-or­gan­ised le­gal and gov­er­nance struc­ture, an ad­vanced oil ex­plo­ration and re­fin­ing in­dus­try, an ex­pan­sive agri­cul­tur­al in­dus­try with large co­coa, cof­fee, rice, cit­rus and sug­ar plan­ta­tions, a de­vel­oped rail­way sys­tem, a low crime rate and a very clean en­vi­ron­ment,” she added.

De­spite all this, the Prime Min­is­ter said that while in­di­vid­u­als and mem­bers of so­ci­ety have made mis­takes and have per­haps “fool­ish­ly take[n] short­cuts that are not in our best in­ter­est,” she stressed the need for na­tion­al uni­ty.

“What­ev­er our short­com­ings, bi­as­es and griev­ances, we share one cit­i­zen­ship, one home­land and a col­lec­tive du­ty to put Trinidad and To­ba­go first,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.