CARICOM suffering from 'implementation impotence'

For the first time in a while, none of the regional leaders at the end-of-summit news conference uttered the words, 'we have had a very good meeting'.

These words have become synonymous with CARICOM leaders as they sought to deepen the regional integration movement.

And even though the two-day gathering in Grenada last weekend, February 25-26, was intended to examine mechanisms for the governance of the integration movement that the leaders have always touted as being one of the oldest in the world, when they emerged from their closed-door huddle, there was practically little, or as some commentators have observed, no progress to announce.

In fact, the leaders have also been unable to name a successor to Sir Edwin Carrington, the Trinidad and Tobago-born veteran regional public servant, who retired at the start of the year after 18 years in the post.

His retirement had long been signalled.

At the end of the CARICOM summit in Jamaica in July last year, Sir Edwin, no doubt aware of the private comments about the need for a new head at the top, and in some instances, newspaper editorials urging him to call it a day, made it clear that he never came to the job with the intention of staying forever.

There are at least six persons vying for the post. Grenadian Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, the current chairman of CARICOM, called the exercise to replace Carrington "a work in progress" and said the new top public servant would be selected through a transparent process.

His Jamaican counterpart, Bruce Golding, said the heads hope to have a new secretary general in place by July, the date of their next annual summit to be held in St Kitts.

"One has to be careful you don't pre-empt the outcome of those interviews, we just have to wait for that process to be completed. We would have expected to receive the report of the interview committee and to have deliberated on that by that time," Golding said.

But as they wing their way back to their respective Caribbean countries, regional leaders have done little to dismiss a cynical CARICOM population that they themselves have acknowledged, may not now share the vision the region's forefathers had for the 15-member bloc.

In fact, acting CARICOM Secretary General Lolita Applewhaite publicly admitted that the integration movement has "fallen short in a number of areas" and that it was important for the leaders to make a "determination of our priorities".

"Once our heads of government have re-established the priorities, focus and direction, action must be taken to communicate clearly with, consult and encourage active involvement of the regional public so that our people are not only beneficiaries of our development efforts but involved as active participants," said Applewhaite.

Thomas said Caribbean nationals have become somewhat fed-up with "implementation impotence", particularly as it relates to the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) that allows for the free movement of goods, services, skills and labour across the region.

When the leaders emerged from their two-day huddle, Barbados Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart, the regional leader with the responsibility for the CSME, said the bloc's foreign ministers have been asked to come up with a "realistic date" for implementation of the single market component of the CSME.

Stuart said the original deadline of 2015 could not be achieved in the context of the economic challenges globally and within the region.

But he insisted that there has been "a reaffirmation of faith" in the initiative.

At the end of their summit in Jamaica last July, the regional leaders said that the CARICOM sub-committee on governance would have examined long-standing proposals for a new CARICOM governance structure.

But Golding acknowledged that the idea mooted by the West Indian Commission, which is now defunct, for an executive-level commission with the power to take decisions within the Community, has been rejected by the heads.

When he addressed the opening ceremony of the intersessional summit last weekend, Golding said it was no easy task "to coordinate the engagement of 14 sovereign states and 14 sometimes contentious heads of government"; that various mechanisms have been proposed but "none has found unanimous acceptance".

"If we are hoping to find the perfect solution, we are setting up our own disappointment for there is no perfect solution," he said.

Golding said that the leaders cannot escape addressing the governance issue, since "it is a major cause of our implementation deficit".

He said while the "voices of the sceptics may be subdued from time to time", they are ever present.

"We face the real danger that if the people of the Caribbean do not see in CARICOM the fulfilment of their hopes and aspirations, the solution of some of their most persistent problems, they will look beyond CARICOM for their salvation," Golding said.

- CMC