In recent months there has been much discussion in the regional media about the issue of devising new institutional arrangements for the management of Caricom’s business. This has particularly related to the establishment of machinery to ensure more effective and timely implementation of decisions taken by heads of government and the various ministerial councils of the community.
It is in that connection that questions have been raised about the fate of a report on the governance of Caricom prepared by a technical working group appointed by the heads of government some years ago, since no definitive decisions appeared to have been taken by the heads that would indicate a reorganization of the community’s organs and its secretariat. But no significant announcements seems to have emerged from the Caricom Secretariat in recent times, to indicate that real progress was being made.
A look at communiqués reporting on recent heads of government meetings does indeed seem to indicate that this is the case. We note that after Caricom heads of government met in Barbados last July, their communiqué indicated that, “The Conference reviewed the preliminary report of the Sub-Committee of the Technical Working Group on Governance which was requested, among other things, to determine how the proposal by the Guyana Government for the establishment of a Council for Economic Cooperation might be reconciled with the recommendations contained in the original TWG Report. The Conference decided to establish a Council for Coordination and Implementation to replace the existing Community Council. They also affirmed their agreement to establish a CARICOM Commission as a mechanism for facilitating the implementation of the decisions adopted by the Community. The Conference established a small committee headed by the Chairman of Conference, the Prime Minister of Barbados, to refine the decision and advance implementation of the recommendations of the TWG”.
So the effective response of the July conference seems to have been to replace one ministerial committee with another, though our understanding of the role of the community council is, that its role has been, among other things, to facilitate the decision-making process and oversee implementation. The intention was that the heads of governments’ consultations should not be cluttered with all kinds of demands for decisions on all sorts of issues which, frequently in their judgement, could be dealt with lower down the institutional order. To us, the suggested change means that a rose by any other name is still a rose.
We have no indication as to whether, at the Inter-Sessional Heads of Government Conference in Nassau earlier this year, any indication was given as to the establishment of the Council for Coordination and Implementation. But we do observe that it is reported that at the special heads of government meeting recently held in Port-of-Spain, the heads, “agreed on the urgent need to enhance governance arrangements within the Community and… engaged in a wide-ranging exchange of views against the background of the long-standing proposal for the establishment of a CARICOM Commission… and agreed on the need to, inter alia, strength the quasi-cabinet arrangements; review the decision-making process within the Community… consider the implications of non-compliance of the Community’s decision… restructure the Secretariat…”
We believe that we can, and should, be excused by our heads of government if we say that we feel, at this time, that they have been taking us around in circles. Indeed it appears to us that this Port-of-Spain decision is intended to put the proposal for a Caricom commission to bed once and for all. And we believe that someone among our heads should be brave enough to tell us so, and allow all the speculation to stop.
What we do know, of course, is that since the change of government in Jamaica, the new Prime Minister, Mr Bruce Golding, has made it clear that his government does not wish to go in the direction of a single economy, and that they believe that a Caricom commission would infringe on the sovereignty of Jamaica and is therefore, presumably, unacceptable. It therefore seems that the hesitations of Jamaica, on the basis of the need for unanimity in the conference’s decision-making, have stymied any inclination to a fundamental restructuring of Caricom’s organs, in accordance with the challenges posed by the presumed transition to a single economy, and the need for a more effective tool for harmonizing governmental decision-making and negotiation in external affairs.
In the meantime, Prime Minister Arthur of Barbados, who had spearheaded the work towards a single economy, has demitted office.
We are aware that a substantial amount of monies were harnessed from various external sources towards the work of the technical working group. We wonder, as they observe the verbal merry-go-round of our heads’ decision-making on this governance issue, what those donors must be thinking.
