EDITORIAL - T&T's bad move with Edwin Carrington

This newspaper has the highest regard for Mr Edwin Carrington, the Trinidadian national who served for 18 years as secretary general of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), until his retirement last December.

That the Community, during Mr Carrington's, or anyone else's, tenure fell short of its promise and the aspirations of the citizens of its member states could never be blamed, in its entirety, on its secretary general.

For, as is widely acknowledged, there are weaknesses in CARICOM's governance structure that contribute significantly to what the Grenadian prime minister, Mr Tillman Thomas, refers to as the Community's "implementation deficit". That, in substantial part, is the result of the unwillingness of CARICOM members to devolve some of their sovereignty and authority to an executive centre.

Of Mr Carrington's own shortcomings and/or contribution to CARICOM's underperformance, academics and historians will ultimately judge. On balance, the scale, we feel, will be in his favour.

Questionable appointment

Our regard for Mr Carrington, notwithstanding, this newspaper finds curious, and highly questionable, the decision by the Trinidad and Tobago government to appoint him as that country's ambassador to CARICOM.

Lest we be reminded of our endorsement of Guyana's outgoing leader, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, for the post as CARICOM secretary general, we believe our suggestion is different than Mr Carrington's assignment in his proposed new role. Our concept of the evolved secretary generalship is that of an activist, quasi-political one, demanding someone who regional leaders would consider almost as a peer and where political provenance, in addition to leadership skills, would be useful.

With regard to the position to be assumed by Mr Carrington, it has to be viewed in the context of an emerging idea, championed by Jamaica, on the role that Community ambassadors should play in advancing the work of CARICOM.

Slow, messy implementation process

A view that has currency is that a significant contributor to CARICOM's poor implementation record is that too little time is attended to domestic political ramifications of policies adopted by the heads of government at summits. So, implementation becomes a slow, messy process.

Ambassadors, meeting for protracted periods - approximating, say, the regular sessions of representatives at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva - would work through the political and technical issues of declared policy, leading to surer implementation.

It is in this scenario that Mr Carrington, the recent secretary general of CARICOM, might be called upon to engage his former subordinates at the Community's secretariat. Some of these staff might have been at odds, professionally or otherwise, with their ex-boss.

Even as we acknowledge Mr Carrington's professionalism and his capacity to rise above the fray, it would be a relationship fraught with the potential for tension and challenges based on assumed motive rather than the pursuance of one's brief. Moreover, we believe that it would be professionally unfair to ask Mr Carrington to serve in the shadow of any new governance structure that might emerge at the Community, which might be subject to comparisons with his own tenure at the helm.

There are other roles in which, we believe, Mr Carrington's vast talents can be used to the benefit of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.