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CariCom Secretariat’s Introspection

Feb 10, 2012 Editorial

 

CARICOM’s Council of Ministers met earlier this week to discuss, we were told, the Secretariat’s work programme and budget. This meeting, of course, is in the tradition that the institution has established very firmly over the last few decades: hold meetings, make noises that signal the concerns of the populace are being addressed and then plunge into a catatonic silence until the next meeting.
The new Secretary General complained that the Secretariat’s budget was frozen between 2008 and2010 and then cut in 2011. He now warns that if matters are not rectified (meaning that the budget must be funded), efficiency could plummet further at the Secretariat. We seriously doubt that this is possible, barring the complete cessation of work there. Ordinary citizens want to know exactly what the billions of dollars that are poured into the CariCom Secretariat have achieved.
The Secretary General said that he understood the constraints that member states face in meeting their budget commitments in the face of the global financial crisis. Maybe he does, but the evidence shows conclusively that the institution in general and the Secretariat in particular, do not.  We can look at the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 in the US as an example of the challenges where the Secretariat should have demonstrated its relevance.
After it became very obvious that the financial tsunami from the north could very well overwhelm our economies, in January 2009, a Task Force was established by Caricom. But not a thing happened; just silence. So three months later, without any word on the previous initiative, a “Special Team of Experts” was gathered. More silence. In the meantime, the Caricom Secretariat, of course, is busy chewing down its budget. Finally, we heard of a ‘High Level Mobilisation Task Force’, comprising Heads of Government being put together.
By this time, the G20, into which we had absolutely no input, had decided to let the crisis take its course after the initial panic. The Caricom Secretariat, which is supposed to facilitate and caretaker the initiatives of the regional grouping continued in its lassitude. We did nothing; the tourist dependent economies in the grouping began to tank and some had to resort to the warm embrace of the IMF. And now that the crisis has erupted in the Eurozone, we still do not have a plan as to how we could better navigate the rough financial waters that lay ahead. But we have to fund the Caricom Secretariat.
Then there is the matter that is close to the heart of the entire region but particularly to us in Guyana: regional food security. For the past forty years we have been hearing about the burden of footing a massive food importation bill. It is now up to US$3.5 billion and we are still complaining. One initiative that could have solved the problem, the Jagdeo Initiative on agriculture, which was introduced since 2004, has evidently died on the vine. What has the Secretariat done to ensure that this initiative was implemented?
It is symptomatic of the “do nothing” mentality of the entire Caricom setup that the Secretary-General admitted that they will be picking up from a review that was undertaken by the Community Council in 2004. “There is no doubt that many of the recommendations from that 2004 review remain valid and relevant.” So what has the Caricom Secretariat, with its hundreds of highly-paid experts been doing in the intervening eight years?
Once again, with raised arms, we say – go even further back more than twenty years ago to the West Indian Commission’s “Time for Action Report”. Establish a CARICOM Commission to help with executive authority to effectively manage the business of the Community under the supervision of Heads of Government organ. If we continue to be paralysed by fears of “undermining of sovereignty” – which are simply code words for insularity – while the individual territories sink into a swamp of debt, then we can do so without the burden of supporting the Secretariat.
Maybe it is time to pull the curtain down.

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