President Donald Ramotar urged his Heads of Government colleagues in CARICOM yesterday to give more impetus to the regional agricultural transformation programme.
He pointed out that this would encourage production and productivity and strengthen the region’s competitiveness and secure better market access.
In his inaugural address to Heads at the opening ceremony of their 33rd Meeting in St Lucia, President Ramotar deplored the fact that in this diverse region with many varied products and much under-developed potentials, the food import bill is huge although the available resources can guarantee the region its own food supply.
He said it is an indictment of the entire region that a significant dent in the food import bill is still to be made.
“The more than three billion dollars that leave our region every year could be put to productive use within our region to improve our peoples’ lives,” President Ramotar declared, according to a copy of his speech released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here.
However, he said he was encouraged that the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency has been established and urged the support of member states to ensure that the agency becomes fully functional as soon as possible.
Moreover, as the Lead Head for Agriculture, he disclosed that he will be initiating discussions on the priority actions in the agricultural sector with key regional stakeholders.
“Across our region, we must invest more in food production,” Ramotar underscored.
Regional integration
Highlighting his “firm belief” that advancing the regional integration enterprise in all of its dimensions does not collide with individual national interests, Ramotar declared that “in fact without regional integration, our individual national survival can by no means be assured.”
He also reiterated that strong regional institutions are indispensable to the success of the regional integration process and to the integrity of regional identity.
“How can we, half a century into our lives as independent nations, be content with reposing in judges far removed from our regional and domestic realities, the right to be final arbiters in our justice system?,” the Guyanese leader asked.
In that light, Ramotar called on his colleagues to “muster the political will to ensure that the intended jurisdictional boundaries of the Caribbean Court of Justice are realized. To do otherwise would be consciously or unconsciously fostering doubt in our abilities.”
“This is not the time for that,” he added, “it is a time to take these steps confidently.”
And putting the spotlight on what he described as that “other great Caribbean institution – West Indies cricket”, Ramotar noted that cricket “is one of the first truly regional institutions that has fostered the confidence that we can successfully integrate.”
He observed that while it has given the region its heroes and role models and is perhaps the best emblem there is of regional identity, much has changed over time, including the huge amounts of money involved in the sport.
Abomination
“Governments have invested millions of dollars in building facilities to enhance the game and to promote the growth of the sport. However, today we face the abomination – key matches are now being taken out of the region while some of our territories are deliberately deprived,” Ramotar highlighted.
He said further that “this must be of great concern to us,” since “West Indies cricket is not the private property of some administrators but it is a regional public good.”
Against that background, the Guyanese Head of State called for the full implementation of the recommendations of the Patterson Commission, contending that “We, while recognizing and respecting the autonomy of the sport, cannot be oblivious to the problems in the administration of the game.”
The latter remarks were a direct reference to the imbroglio between the Guyana Government and the West Indies Cricket Board over the management of local cricket. Several Test matches and other games have since been taken away from Guyana by the WICB.
Meanwhile, sounding a warning note, Ramotar said that of all of the vulnerabilities facing CARICOM countries today, “none poses a more direct threat to our very existence than that of climate change.”
“We are meeting immediately after the Rio +20 Conference. It is imperative that our region continues to leverage our extreme exposure to climate change in forging and advocating a common position on the matter.”
According to Ramotar, the “international negotiations are going much too slow, while emissions are on an unacceptably high trajectory and finance for adaptation and mitigation woefully inadequate.”
While he noted that the Durban meeting established an Adaptation Mechanism, a Technology Mechanism and a Green Climate Fund, he emphasized that it is “essential that agreement is reached this year on the new and additional sources of financing for the Fund, and that a REDD plus window be established to reduce deforestation and incentivize forest conservation and sustainable forest management.”
And looking at the region’s external relations, Ramotar noted that in the past strong relations were built with Europe, the US and Canada and this was only natural considering the region’s history.
And he advised that “we should continue to promote and build on those relations in our mutual interest,” But “to minimize the economic and social impact which we experience when those areas find themselves in difficulties we must begin to broaden our relations.”
“These include countries that are geographically proximate to ours such as Brazil and with which we have historically strong relations such as China,” adding that the global economy is undergoing rapid structural changes while “growth is driven today by new and emerging centres of economic activity.”
Ramotar also assessed the aspect of regional integration and made the point that “people must be able to move freely through all our territories.”
In the meantime, he acknowledged that since the Conference of Heads of Government in Grand Anse, Grenada in 1989, Heads of Government have constantly been re-committing to hassle-free movement of people in order to promote a greater sense of community, but regrettably, “that implementation has been lagging for the most part.”
