CARICOM Heads establish regional taskforce headed by Jagdeo

Jul 05, 2009 News

… addressing the Global Financial Crisis

The 30th Meeting of the Heads of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) that concluded yesterday at the Conference Centre, has agreed to and has established a regional task force to forcefully deal with addressing the current Global Economic Crisis.
The task force will be headed by Guyana’s Head of State, Bharrat Jagdeo and will include Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves; Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning; and Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding among others.
The task force will be aided by technical personnel from resources within each of the countries that have a representative on the newly established entity.
Speaking with regional and local media operatives prior to the start of yesterday’s session, Prime Minister Gonsalves said that the task force is aimed at superintending the response of the region to the economic crisis.
He noted that the task force will be entrusted with two central mandates, one being to mobilise resources internationally and the other being within the Girvan Strategic Vision to identify specific areas where the region could move forward in a more focused and co-ordinated manner.
Dr Gonsalves emphasised that this was the first such task force of a political nature.
He noted that the work of similar task forces such as the one run by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States will be fed into the CARICOM initiative.
Dr Gonsalves was adamant in his emphasis on the fact that it was not just about drafting a document to take to the International Financial Institutions (IFI) in fact he said that the CARICOM task force will stringently and consistently engage the various IFI’s.
“We all know the magnitude of the problem that we are facing, we know the essence of the crisis and we have to do something together regionally.”
He said that there are the criticis who would say that CARICOM is late in its response to the crisis, “but it is better late than never.”
He pointed out that this was not to say that CARICOM countries by themselves have not done anything to mitigate the impact of the crisis. He cited CL Financial, which, ever since its near demise, has since been nationalised in a bid to save jobs and people’s money. He spoke of British Insurance and CLICO Barbados, where the governments have taken steps to mitigate the effects of the crisis.
Dr. Gonslaves said that despite the fact that individual countries have been applying some measure, the problem has not been dealt with in a regionally focus manner.
As it relates to the traditional lagging by regional bodies in achieving their mandate, Dr. Gonsalves told local and regional reporters that “You can rest assured I gun jam Bharrat (Jagdeo) We got to get this show on the road.”
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki- Moon in his message to the CARICOM leaders said, “We at the United Nations are well aware of the significant impact that the economic and financial crisis is having on your people.”
He pointed out that CARICOM States are highly vulnerable to external shocks and are among the most highly indebted in the world.
It was pointed out that the declines in foreign investment, tourism and remittance, which account for a large share of income, are of great concern.
“The close links between the domestic banking sector and international banks mean that many countries are experiencing tightening liquidity, thereby reducing domestic credit and causing the cancellation of several projects.”
He said that the global community must come together to address the impact of the crisis, in particular on the poor, “those least responsible for the crisis and least able to respond. We must keep global commitments on aid. We must reform and update our international institutions.”
Mr. Ban Ki-Moon said that there is need for better real-time data on the consequences, “towards that end, I will be launching a Global Vulnerability Alert System in the coming months.”

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CARICOM Heads establish regional taskforce headed by Jagdeo

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