Former CARICOM SG speaks on deficit implementation within grouping

Feb 18, 2018 News

---

By Peter Richards

KINGSTON, Jamaica (CMC) – The former secretary general of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping, Roderick Rainford, on Friday, said he was pleased that many of the decisions taken by regional leaders to deepen the regional integration movement had not been implemented over the years.
Speaking at the University of the West Indies (UWI) “Vice Chancellor’s Forum on the Golding Report on CARICOM-Jamaica Relations,” Rainford, who served as the region’s top public servant between 198-92, acknowledged that his position “would shock some people” as he looked at the implementation deficit within the 15-member grouping.
“This issue of the continuous interplay, sometimes tension between the national interests, national perspective and regional interests or regional perspective, and of course it touches on the question of implementation deficit…is a continuous refrain.
“But that tension or interplay between the national and regional in so far as it touches on the implementation deficit also concerns the question of design and many of you might recall that arising out of “Time for Action” report and followed up in later periods out of the Rose Hall Declaration and subsequent exercises, that one of the design challenges that we try to face was the question of a CARICOM Commission”.
He told the forum that was attended by UWI Vice Chancellor, Sir Hilary Beckles, the former Jamaica prime minister Bruce Golding, as well as Ambassador Dr Richard Bernal, the UWI pro-vice chancellor for global affairs, that there has been “some misunderstanding of what was intended there”.
“In terms of my own understanding of what was intended, apart from other things that needed to be done, was to introduce a feature that would improve the chance of better implementation.
“But let me say too that it has been my own personal view, and I had shocked some people by saying so in the past, that we had better be happy that many of the decisions that have not been implemented, we had better be happy that they were in fact not implemented.
“Because to my mind the decisions that have been made over the years had lacked what I called tests of financial feasibility, the tests of political feasibility, the tests of technical feasibility, tests of administrative feasibility”,
He said it is a “tall order to be fulfilled and I believe if we had tried vigorously over the years to subject decisions to these tests or have decisions being arrived at to satisfy these tests, you probably would have had fewer decisions to be implemented, but then the implementation would have had a better chance”.
The forum here was discussing the report of the 17-member Commission, chaired by Golding that reviewed the island’s relations within CARICOM and the wider Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) grouping.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who tabled the report in the Jamaica Parliament earlier this month, said the review was not intended to seek an exit from CARICOM and from various regional arrangements, such as the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) that allows for the free movement of goods, services, skills and labour across the Community.
But he said it was intended to undertake a full review of the structure, procedures and practices that have not worked effectively in the national and regional interest.
The Commission was charged with evaluating the effects of Jamaica’s membership in CARICOM, on the country’s economic growth and development, with particular reference to trade in goods and services, investment, international competitiveness and job creation.
The report includes 33 recommendations, and has been presented against the background of the establishment of CARICOM in 1973, which involved a communal vision of Caribbean integration, as well as the Revision of the Treaty of Chaguaramas in 2001, intended to establish the CSME.
Rainford in his presentation to the audience, including those in the region and the wider Caribbean, who were following the forum on the UWI website, spoke also of what he felt was the intention of the CARICOM Commission.
“I have had occasions to say and I think both the West Indian Commission “Time for Action” and other subsequent exercises have noted that in the case of our CARICOM integration movement, the political involvement is intermittent.
“Ministers and heads of government come to periodic meetings then go back to their national spaces to engage with their national interests, national perspectives and the rest is left to the administrative and technocratic personnel to go forward.
“To my mind what has been absent is a continuous political presence, not an intermittent …at the regional level, that would speak to the regional interests and pursue the regional interests at all times, and that to my mind would have helped the implementation process”.
Rainford, who took over the secretary general position from Barbadian Dr. Kurleigh King in 1983 at the 10th anniversary summit in Trinidad, told the audience that the political presence would have enabled “to engage in continuous political interface with the member states in a way that the administrative and technical personnel cannot.
“We cannot minimise the role for political persuasion. These creatures whom we called politicians, we criticise from time to time, they are critical both at national and regional levels,” he said, recalling an instance when during a meeting, “a political insertion on certain critical issues at the right time and in the right mode” helped bring about a solution to a “naughty issue”.
Rainford said on the question of supernationality versus inter-governmentalism “I think it is clear to us that for the most part the promise of the future has to go forward on the basis of inter-governmentalism, but much more streamlined.
He said he strongly believes that the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which was established in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s final court, “is one of the promising institutions of the future, even if it is not used as much as it is because its determinations are authoritative…”
He admitted to being a “little nervous” as to whether the decisions of the CCJ would in fact be respected in the region.
But he did mention two cases, including the CCJ landmark decision involving the Jamaican national Shanique Myrie, who successfully claimed damages against Barbados after she said she was treated unfairly when she arrived at the Grantley Adams Airport in March 2011.
“I think it was very very important for the Community that that case came to the CCJ (and) the CCJ deliberated and handed down a decision,” he said, noting even then the “long delay” by Bridgetown to honour the damages.
He said the other case involved Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana and the implementation of the Common External Tariff (CET) regarding the importation of cement and the role played by the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat.
“The decision was taken to suspend (CET) and allow Guyana to import from extra-regional sources and there came a point when Trinidad indicated that they were now ready and enable to supply and the suspension should be removed.
“Guyana baulked and the matter went to the CCJ and I was very nervous that if the CCJ decided against Guyana, would Guyana observe the decision, and I was greatly relieved I must say, when Guyana respected the decision of the CCJ on that matter.”
He said the more of these cases coming before the CCJ, “the more you build up the atmosphere where you have an authoritative regional institution that will make a difference to enforcing the rights and obligations under the CCJ, “Rainford said.

---

---