CARICOM’s Future

Aug 17, 2011 Editorial

Irwin LaRocque is now officially ensconced as the sixth Secretary-General of CARICOM, the institutional embodiment of our Caribbean integration aspirations since 1973. It is nothing short of pathetic that after thirty-eight years of its existence and its articulated raison d’etre – the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) – the people of the Caribbean still have no clear picture as to when the latter will be consummated. All that the leaders of the member territories could say after their last summit early in July was that the original timetable of 2015 was not on the cards.
So where exactly does that leave the organisation? Back in May, following a two-day retreat in Guyana, CARICOM leaders said they would await a restructuring of the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat before establishing an overarching decision-implementation arm to ensure regional policies are adhered to. But this appears to us to be a case of putting the cart before the horse. How can the Secretariat be restructured before the “decision-implementation arm” has been agreed on? For decades senior regionalists have been pointing out the fatal consequences of not having a governance body that has some teeth, vis-à-vis implementation of decisions.
As such CARICOM has become a talk shop and the Secretariat, a high-paid facilitator of the production of hot air for which such fora are famous. The communiqué at the end of the summit was a paragon of the double speak that the people of the Caribbean have had to endure: “While reiterating their intention to review the schedule towards full implementation of the Single Economy, putting a pause on specific elements, such as the creation of a Single Currency, Heads of Government highlighted the critical importance of advancing implementation of those elements of the Single Economy which would create an environment more conducive to investment and job creation.”
Exactly what does this mean? If one were to objectively examine the conditions of the major members of CARICOM that are dragging their feet on integration, it would be obvious that they need the synergies that a CSME offers. Barbados and Jamaica have had to resort to the IMF to stabilise their financial situation in the wake of the precipitous drop in tourists from the developed countries that are locked in their own financial crisis. Tourism from this direction is not expected to recover anytime soon. T&T has just received news that its gas reserves will be depleted in eleven years.
Talk about “creating an environment more conducive to investment and job creation” has to be translated into a program of action if it is to mean anything. And as matters stand, the new Secretary-General can do very little, if anything, to initiate such a program. There are already a plethora of programs dead or dying on the vine for lack of political will on the part of the leaders to constitute a governance body with, as LaRocque put it, “the authority to match the responsibility” of getting the job done.
Take the “Jagdeo Initiative” on agriculture that has been on the table since 2002. The CARICOM governments have bemoaned their US$3 billion (now almost $4 billion) food import bill for decades even during its CARIFTA (1968-1973) incarnation and pledged to wipe it out through a food production strategy. Yet, after two decades of inaction, when the Jagdeo Initiative identified the constraints on regional agricultural and went on to assign responsibility for addressing those constraints to individual member states, we still have no meaningful progress.
So we have another generation of Agriculture Ministers, such as Mr Barath of T&T, like Christopher Columbus, once again discovering that we have a “food security” problem. That in a nutshell is all the progress we have made in this key area: giving a perennial problem a new name.
Mr LaRocque expatiated on the need for funding beyond the present US$16 million annually for the Secretariat. We are of the firm view that unless there is a clear commitment from the leaders of CARICOM for a new governance structure, the Secretariat should receive no additional funding.

Latest News

CARICOM’s Future

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| April, 4th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

President’s College upstage Santa Rosa to advance into Quarters

CWI withdraws penalty on John Campbell following...

‘One Guyana’ 3×3 Quest Basketball opens...

GCA, East Coast surge to huge wins

GFF/Concacaf kick off two-day Match Commissioners...

Chase’s Academic outclass Bartica to move...

Features/Columnists

Anticipation without preparation

The U.S. “Joining” the Commonwealth: an unreasonable expectation

Access to information should not come to this

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

CARICOM’s Future

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| April, 4th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]