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Absent Caricom ministers chided

May 30, 2011 News


– missed information and communication meeting

Government ministers from Caricom member states came in for criticism for not being present when the organisation held its 36th special meeting on information and communication in Grenada last Friday.
Prime Minister of Grenada and Chairman of Caricom, Tillman Thomas, told the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) of his dissatisfaction that a number of ministers did not attend the one-day meeting, and urged that regional governments take the movement towards development of information technology more seriously.
The COTED meeting was called to discuss and possibly approve a draft Regional Digital Development Strategy and its implementation plan, along with other ICT matters.
Members of COTED are trade ministers from all member states, but of the 15 states that enjoy full Caricom membership, only four had ministerial representation falling short of the required eight to constitute a quorum for the meeting to be legally constituted.
“While we wait on a quorum for the adoption and adaption of this strategy some of our nationals are finding international success in their homes via their computers,” said Mr. Tillman who holds Caricom lead responsibility for science and technology.
He warned, “We stand to lose our best minds to the developed world unless we embrace ICT with commitment and urgency.”
“Our people cannot afford leadership that is tentative and unstable. We have been talking long enough. It’s now time to act,” he was quoted as saying in a Caricom Secretariat media release.
He pointed out that six years have elapsed since the last regional meeting on ICT, and he therefore expected ministers would have regarded this conference as a stepping stone in the thrust  to utilise information technology, information communication technology as a driving force for development.
He said that the region was at the beginner’s stage of adopting information technology as a tool for development, while many other countries were moving rapidly along the information highway.
“We are years overdue. ICT is here to stay, we must embrace it and make a paradigm shift or we would be struggling to catch up.”
He advised that if the trade ministers do not develop a more serious approach to ICT, Caricom’s credibility as a regional bloc would be questioned, “not just by the rest of the world, but by our own people”.

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