Editorial | Holness’ CARICOM agenda

It is not known what Andrew Holness said in private when he visited the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) secretariat in Guyana last week.

But the Jamaican prime minister’s public remarks underlined the need for CARICOM’s heads of government to resolve the lingering uncertainty over the status and future of Carla Barnett, the community’s secretary general, who Trinidad and Tobago says it will no longer recognise when her current contract expires in mid-August.

Port of Spain argued that Dr Barnett’s reappointment for a second term at a CARICOM summit in Kitts and Nevis in February was irregular, having broken the rules on decision-making by heads of government.

Its representative, the foreign minister, Sean Sobers, was absent from a leaders’ retreat when the decision was taken. Trinidad and Tobago claimed he was “disinvited”, rather than, as CARICOM said, having opted out of the invitation.

While the Barnett affair has gone relatively quiet in recent weeks, there is no sign that the Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has relented from her hardline position on the matter. Should Port of Spain remain adamant and nothing else changes, it is conceivable that Dr Barnett could continue to perform her general and day-to-day managerial roles.

But the secretary’s general job is not, or oughtn’t to be, about counting widgets and distributing conference schedules. A key, if unstated, element of the role is helping the region to make sense of, and respond to, an increasingly fraught global environment.In this circumstance, a secretary general of a relatively small organisation, who is snubbed by, and faces open hostility from, a critical member-state could quickly be confronted with institutional dysfunction.

This is not the issue that Dr Holness addressed when he spoke to the secretariat’s staff. Nonetheless, he indirectly made the case for why the situation shouldn’t be allowed to come to this. Which may have been his intent.

“Your job as regional administrators and technocrats is to help us, the political leaders, understand the dynamics and the changes that are happening globally and regionally,” the Jamaican prime minister said. “We rely on you to make sense of the changing and complex global situation, and our regional situation as well.”

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Indeed, CARICOM is having to chart the disintegration of the post-World War II international order, made more traumatic by the impulsive policy actions of US president, Donald Trump, and his muscular reassertion of his country’s hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. At the same time, CARICOM has to navigate the existential climate crisis while attempting to transform itself into a genuine single market and economy.

The management of any of these issues would, by itself, be difficult. Combined, they demand great effort and the benefits of the institutional conglomeration that inheres in CARICOM, to which Dr Holness signalled he has hitched Jamaica’s wagon.

“There are common challenges that we need to pursue as a region, and the best institution to do that is CARICOM,” Prime Minister Holness said.

There were also opportunities for economic collaboration within the community, he said.

“For that to happen, it is not just a bilateral pursuit,” he said. “We need standardisation of rules; we need to be able to take advantage of common opportunities.”

In short, Dr Holness made the case for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), which can’t fully materialise in an environment of upheavals and distractions.

Against this background, there are two significant take-aways from Prime Minister Holness’ Georgetown intervention. The first is his evolution from, if not CARICOM-sceptic, a lukewarm supporter of regional integration, to now embracing the economic possibilities in the community for Jamaica.

After his election a decade ago, rather than accepting Jamaica’s participation in CARICOM as an article of faith, Dr Holness established a commission, chaired by former prime minister, Bruce Golding, to review the benefits, if any, the island had gained from the community, and the basis on which its membership should continue.

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In its 2017 report, the Golding Commission made sweeping criticisms of the functioning of CARICOM and offered a suite of recommendations for improvement, including fully implementing the CSME. It advised Jamaica to give CARICOM five years to follow through on the initiatives it proposed with respect to the CSME.

“In the absence of a commitment by member states as outlined in (the report), and its diligent execution, Jamaica should withdraw from the CSME but retain its membership of CARICOM in a capacity similar to that of the Bahamas,” the Golding Commission said.