EDITORIAL - Trinidad's being unfair, Kamla

Trinidad and Tobago's new prime minister (PM), Kamla Persad-Bissessar, wants a review of the petroleum stabilisation fund, through which her country has over the past five years provided economic support to some of its regional partners.

"I believe there needs to be greater accountability as to how the funds are being used so that the resources spent are allocated in accordance with what are the most urgent needs in our region," she told colleagues at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit in Montego Bay.

Taken at face value, the new government in Port-of-Spain wants to ensure that the money being spent by her country - perhaps more than TT$1 billion since the launch of the facility by the Patrick Manning administration - is being put to the greatest utility. Which, of course, is entirely reasonable.

However, we would suggest that Mrs Persad-Bissessar does not limit the review to a simple audit of the stabilisation fund, but take a broader look at Trinidad and Tobago's energy policy and its impact on trade within what is supposed to be a Caribbean single market.

Intra-regional trade

Indeed, while she is at it, the Trinidad and Tobago PM should also review her country's adherence to CARICOM's rules of origin regime to ensure that Port-of-Spain engages in intra-regional trade on, as the saying goes, "a level playing field". This country's agriculture minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, is the latest Jamaican official to complain that it is not.

In a report to Parliament on his portfolio last week, Dr Tufton suggested that Trinidadian agro-processors enjoy an unfair advantage on two counts. They have cheap, subsidised energy and are allowed to import raw materials using an opaque tariff regime.

Dr Tufton complained specifically about Jamaican peanuts, which are unable to compete on the domestic market because of the Trinidadian products that are imported from extra-regional sources "with unclear duty arrangements" and processed with "subsidised energy". But it is not the only product about which he could raise an argument. This cannot be allowed to stand.

An important point to recall is that Jamaica runs a trade deficit with CARICOM of nearly US$1 billion - the bulk of that with Trinidad and Tobago - for oil-related products and processed foods.

Huge subsidy

We sell very little to Trinidad and Tobago, where the cost of energy of under US$0.06 per kilowatt hour is a fraction of what it is elsewhere in CARICOM. This cost represents a huge subsidy to the Trinidadian manufacturers, which the Port-of-Spain government denies, because the energy cost is afforded to the entire society.

This arrangement is, in our view, counter to the principle of a single market and its notion of equal treatment within its common space. In that regard, we support the position, long held by the Opposition shadow foreign trade minister, Anthony Hylton, of the need for a CARICOM energy policy.

In the meantime, it is not unreasonable for Jamaica, even within the community, to argue for special tariff protection for sensitive sectors and to insist on a proper enforcement of the community rules of origin.

Jamaica alone cannot play by the rules.

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