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Caricom Summit opens with tedious ceremony
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By Radha Motielall
The 32nd annual conference of the Caricom Heads of Government got underway on Thursday with a marathon opening ceremony that lasted some five and a half hours.
This tested the patience of the heads, who were visibly tired since most of them had arrived just before the ceremony after hours of flying.
In fact after the speeches of four prime ministers, two of whom required translators, and two cultural items, the chairpersons took the podium to introduce the final speaker, incoming chair and host Prime Minister Dr. Denzel Douglas.
This immediately brought a round of applause that was initiated by Jamaica’s Bruce Golding.
Their hopes for an early night were however dashed when it came to the final item, the awards presentation. By then the ceremony which had commenced at 18:30 hours was still underway at 22:30 hours.
The citation read for the two awards amounted to two feature address, and both recipients had long speeches to deliver. And so the ceremony went past 23:00 hours.
The reception commenced at midnight.
Speaking with the media afterwards, President Bharrat Jagdeo described the opening ceremony as “a little obscene”. He recalled that in May of this year, while on retreat in Guyana, the Heads had agreed that they needed to spend more time getting down to real business, and cut the ceremonial dressing. However the complete opposite was experienced in Basseterre, St Kitts.
Nevertheless the Guyanese head expressed the hope, that this, his final conference of Caricom as Guyana’s President will result in some tangible benefits for the Caribbean people.
He noted that the region’s people want to see real benefits in several areas, only then will they be supportive of the integration process.
For Jagdeo’s part, he has had some milestone achievement in his 12 years with Caricom, including his lone campaign for the region against the European Union on the Economic Partnership Agreement.
One of his major regional projects has been the move to unite the regional agricultural policies, in what is called the Jagdeo Initiative.
Looking back at its implementation, Jagdeo, who has responsibility for agriculture in the Caricom quasi Cabinet, said that the results have been mixed.
The President said that some countries have moved ahead and implemented some of the features and have recorded progress in their agricultural sectors.
The Jagdeo Initiative is viewed as the region’s passport to food security and the establishment of a thriving agri business sector.
President Jagdeo says that full implementation continues to suffer due to a lack of funds among other things.
Meanwhile, looking to the issues before this conference, the Guyanese president says that he will be pushing for a few things, including a restructuring of the Caricom Secretariat and for more to be done to ensure regional food security.
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