President’s New Year's call to TT: Learn from challenges

President Christine Kangaloo - Photo by Angelo Marcelle

PRESIDENT Christine Kangaloo says lessons must be learnt from the challenges of 2025 in order for Trinidad and Tobago to grow as a nation and a people, and to deal with issue that lie ahead in this the New Year.

In her New Year's Day message to the nation, Kangaloo said, "Adversity is seldom a welcome guest. But it moulds us, increases our resilience and stretches our creativity to its limits.

Adversity, she continued, tests us and reminds us of who we are and what we are capable of.

"As we leave 2025 behind and enter the new year that is 2026, we leave behind a year that has had its fill of adversity, and we face the call to learn from the lessons that adversity has taught and to apply them to the task of creating a better future."

Kangaloo said there was much that weighed down or held TT back in 2025 but added these are things which should be left behind in the new year.

"Our penchant for self-derision ('TT is not a real place'); our seeming inability (or refusal) to moderate the caustic language we use in public discourse; and our willingness to accept less than that to which we are entitled from those who should know (and do) better."

Kangaloo made no reference to any specific issue.

The year drew to a close with an ongoing debate between Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the Opposition PNM and others over Persad-Bissessar's description of TT as "a lawless dump," created after the PM defended government's decision to increase fines for road traffic offences and increase fees for other things such as birth and death registration fees.

These increases were outlined in legal notices published before December 25.

Kangaloo also said 2026 is a momentous year as it marks TT's 50th anniversary as a republic.

"As we commemorate this milestone, let us lean into our potential as a nation. Let us recommit to shaping our own future with the confidence, patriotism and the unity of purpose that a Republican nation demands."

Kangaloo made no reference to any specific matter here either.

This milestone comes against the background of questions being asked about Persad-Bissessar's support for the ongoing US military deployment in the Southern Caribbean, establishment of a US military radar system at the ANR Robinson International Airport in Tobago and the indefinite granting of US military transit flights into and out of the Piarco and ANR Robinson International airports.

Eyebrows have also been raised over Persad-Bissessar's public divergence with other Caricom leaders about the military build-up, Persad-Bissessar's criticisms about Caricom's reliability as a partner and her condemnation of local and regional critics of the deployment.

2025 NOT
ALL BAD

Kangaloo observed 2025 was not altogether a bad year for TT. She said there positive developments.

“In 2025, we revelled, with justifiable abandon, in the heroic feats of Keshorn Walcott, Jereem Richards and the Trinbago Knight Riders.

"We also saw our democracy at its finest, in the way of yet another smooth and peaceful transition of power, away from one government and to another (on April 28)."

Kangaloo said, "Our many achievements across the areas of sport, academia and culture, also added to what was truly a memorable year in our country’s history."

She maintained her faith in the ability of the population to pool collective resources and work for the betterment of TT. "We should aim to learn from, and apply the lessons which the adversities of 2025 have taught us."

Kangaloo had no doubt 2026 will bring new challenges but remained "confident that, standing side by side, and with boundless faith in our destiny, we will rise to meet and overcome them."

Kangaloo said, "We will do so if we return to loving ourselves fully, and to practising greater levels of patriotism."