Lead Editor-Politics
The Government is now pushing for a special meeting of Caricom Heads of Government to challenge the reappointment of Dr Carla Barnett as Secretary General, signalling that fresh elections are also firmly on the table. This, after it was revealed yesterday that this country was deliberately “disinvited” from the voting process.
The Government of Trinidad and Tobago claims it was “surreptitiously” excluded from the decision-making process, alleging that the reappointment occurred without being on the official agenda and without an invitation for T&T to participate in the deliberations.
On Monday, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar declared that she will “ruthlessly” pursue the matter.
Yesterday, Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers said that after sending three official letters to Caricom and being the largest contributor to Caricom’s budget, no acknowledgement is “very, very troubling.”
Sobers said this underscores what the Prime Minister has been saying, that Caricom is not being run “optimally and efficiently.”
Asked what comes next, Sobers said T&T will this week formally request a meeting of Caricom’s Community Council, the body comprising all Foreign Affairs Ministers across the region.
But as he explained, that will be step one.
“Once the Community Council meets, the Community Council then will either agree or disagree that this matter is good enough or important enough that it be raised to the level of Heads of Government, which is a conference for their deliberation and for a decision to be adopted.”
Minister Sobers added, “More than likely, what would be asked is that we need to have the heads discuss this matter and decide or determine the way forward, which would be suggested has to be the conference that will deal with either the reappointment or the election of a new Secretary General.”
The Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister said the Government has no issue with Dr Carla Barnett personally, but rather with the procedure that was followed.
Sobers said this was no mere oversight by Caricom, but he claimed that T&T was deliberately uninvited to the retreat in Nevis where the re-election was ratified.
The minister said Kamla Persad-Bissessar was not the only Prime Minister who left the Caricom meeting early.
“I would have been delegated as Head of Delegation. The Foreign Minister of The Bahamas would have been delegated as Head of Delegation. The Ambassador to Caricom from Antigua and Barbuda was delegated as Head of Delegation. None of us were invited to attend the retreat. As a matter of fact, we were all disinvited. We were told that we were not able to attend, which is a breach of the treaty.”
Citing the treaty, Sobers said, “A Head of Government can delegate anybody to attend as a designated authority on the country’s behalf at a conference and take the relevant decisions that they need to take as if they were the Head. It is in the revised treaty. It is there, plain and simple. For the Secretariat to disinvite us, that was extremely disrespectful.”
Guardian Media examined the treaty, and Article 11 (2) does state, “Any Head of Government may designate a Minister or other person to represent him or her at any Meeting of the Conference.”
There seems to be no clear distinction in the Treaty between a Head and their designate in terms of voting once properly representing the State.
Meaning the revised Treaty allows a Prime Minister to appoint a representative to the Caricom Conference, and that representative may exercise the Member State’s vote.
This may be supported by Article 27 (1), which states, “Subject to paragraph 2 of this Article, each Member State represented on Community Organs and Bodies shall have one vote.”
Sobers could not say if this country is moving ahead with withdrawing or reducing its financial contributions to Caricom as threatened by the Prime Minister. In a statement to Parliament in March, Sobers said that it could be in the range of $120 million per annum. Sobers said it would be for the Prime Minister to make such a decision.
Efforts were made via WhatsApp to contact the Prime Minister on this matter; however, she did not respond before press time.
Meanwhile, Sobers challenged the critics who said that had Persad-Bissessar stayed for the entire four-day meeting in St Kitts and Nevis, she would have been there when the tenure of the Secretary General came up.
The minister said, “I did put to you that about five heads left. So, the result would not have been different. It wouldn’t have changed the price of peas if the Prime Minister was there or not at the end of the day; I was head of the delegation, so I should have been allowed to attend.”
Guardian Media has made repeated attempts to obtain comment from Caricom Chair Dr Terrence Drew and Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett; however, emails and text messages have gone unanswered to date.
