The Private Sector Commission (PSC) has welcomed the decision taken by the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in December last year to include the private sector and labour as associate institutions in the Conferences of the CARICOM Heads of Government.
“It is indisputable,” the PSC said in a release issued on Wednesday, “that the private sector and labour are the true drivers of the economies of our nation states and this inclusion begs the question of why it was not done before when institutions such as the regional university have long been part of these deliberations.”
The decision, which was announced on December 3rd, 2018, at the 18th meeting of Heads of Government on the Caribbean Single Market and Economy held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the PSC said in a release, “went largely unnoticed by the average Caribbean citizen.” The Heads agreed that the Caribbean Congress of Labour and a representative body of the Caribbean private sector would be included in the associate institutions of CARICOM, and the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas amended to make this possible.
The PSC said it is of the firm belief that this decision will afford the Heads of Government direct access to the major economic actors and thus allow them to make more informed decisions, which will be of practical import to the citizens.
It further said that it “has significant implications for the functioning of the Single Market and Economy (CSME) and can be considered to be a major step towards acceleration of the implementation of the goals of the CSME.”
The CSME is intended to support growth and development in the economies of the countries across the Caribbean yet, the PSC said, the obvious decisions which would be necessary for regional growth have often been slow in coming and such decisions when made are often slow to be implemented.
Private sector participation in the decisions of the leaders, the PSC said, “will ensure buy-in by the economic actors while the inclusion of labour will ensure that these decisions take cognizance of accepted labour standards and the general welfare of our workers.”
The decision to include labour and the private sector was based on a recommendation made in the report of CARICOM Review Commission chaired by former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding. The work was commissioned by Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness in July, 2016 with the aim of Jamaica reviewing its relations with CARICOM and CARIFORUM. The commission recommended that the treaty governing CARICOM should be appropriately amended to institutionalise the involvement of the private sector and the labour movement.
