The fol­low­ing is the ser­vices sec­tor's po­si­tion on the re­vised draft Re­gion­al Pol­i­cy (Frame­work) on the Pro­vi­sion of Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices in the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket Econ­o­my (CSME). TTC­SI host­ed a fo­rum on May 17 in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Trade for stake­hold­ers in the ser­vices sec­tor to dis­cuss their views on the pol­i­cy.

Sev­er­al stake­hold­ers with­in the ser­vices sec­tor say they are not in sup­port of the cur­rent draft Re­gion­al Pol­i­cy (Frame­work) on the Pro­vi­sion of Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices in the CSME.Their main con­cern with the draft pol­i­cy is that all pro­fes­sion­als in the ser­vices sec­tor do not re­quire reg­u­la­tion, on­ly those that pose pub­lic in­ter­est risk.

The stake­hold­ers ex­pressed their con­cerns dur­ing a fo­rum host­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI). The con­sul­ta­tion took place on May 17 and was held at TTC­SI's head of­fice, Wood­brook.More than 30 ser­vices sec­tor pro­fes­sion­als met with Jacque­line Charles, the Trade Min­istry's mar­ket ac­cess man­ag­er to dis­cuss and flesh out the draft pol­i­cy doc­u­ment.

The ob­jec­tive of the con­sul­ta­tion was to:

�2 Ed­u­cate stake­hold­ers on the con­tents and im­pli­ca­tions of the draft pol­i­cy

�2 High­light and clar­i­fy the con­cerns stake­hold­ers have with the pol­i­cy

�2 Reach an agree­ment with re­spect to the draft pol­i­cy that will ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress the con­cerns of stake­hold­ers

This is­sue is al­so cur­rent­ly be­fore the Cari­com Coun­cil for Trade & Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment.The aim of the pol­i­cy is to fa­cil­i­tate free move­ment of Cari­com pro­fes­sion­als with­in the CSME and the pro­vi­sion of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices by third coun­try na­tion­als in the CSME, through a har­monised frame­work for reg­is­tra­tion and li­cenc­ing.

How­ev­er, the stake­hold­ers not­ed that if all pro­fes­sion­als are reg­u­lat­ed and li­cenced, the draft pol­i­cy doc­u­ment could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact the ser­vices sec­tor and hin­der the free move­ment of pro­fes­sion­als with­in the re­gion.Charles sought to ex­plain to the stake­hold­ers the con­tents and ra­tio­nale of the ex­ist­ing draft re­gion­al pol­i­cy.

Chal­lenges with the pol­i­cy

Charles stat­ed that cur­rent­ly there is no har­mon­i­sa­tion pol­i­cy frame­work for the pro­vi­sion of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices in the CSME and one is ur­gent­ly need­ed.A har­monised pol­i­cy frame­work is prov­ing to be a chal­lenge, as stake­hold­ers point­ed out that not all pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices re­quired reg­u­la­tion, for ex­am­ple me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers and aca­d­e­mics among oth­ers.

Elab­o­rat­ing on this point was Afra Ray­mond, pres­i­dent of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil, who ex­plained that he has been very skep­ti­cal about cer­tain pro­fes­sions be­ing li­cenced."On­ly ser­vices where there is a pub­lic in­ter­est risk should be li­cenced and reg­u­lat­ed," Ray­mond said."We run the risk of putting the en­tire pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion in fur­ther ridicule by bring­ing more laws/leg­is­la­tion where­by we do not have the ap­petite or will­ing­ness to en­force."

Hol­lis Charles, for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Group of Pro­fes­sion­al As­so­ci­a­tion agreed. He said it will be quite chal­leng­ing to reg­u­late all pro­fes­sion­als be­cause it is not the same for every pro­fes­sion.The sec­ond con­cern raised was the is­sue of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices be­ing self-reg­u­lat­ed."Self-reg­u­la­tions have lim­its in how we can pro­tect the pub­lic in­ter­est, there­fore we need to look at a for­mu­la that would have civil­ian mem­ber­ship in those reg­u­la­to­ry com­mit­tees," Ray­mond sug­gest­ed.

He said pro­fes­sion­als must strike a bal­ance be­tween self-reg­u­la­tion and self-serv­ing be­hav­iour, in or­der to act in the best in­ter­est of the pub­lic.Ra­bindra Jag­ger­nauth, pres­i­dent of the Caribbean In­sti­tute of Cer­ti­fied Man­age­ment Con­sul­tants, who is alo pres­i­dent of the TTC­SI, al­so cau­tioned about over­reg­u­lat­ing.Jag­ger­nauth said over­reg­u­lat­ing may run the risk of hin­der­ing the very thing they want to achieve, which is free move­ment of pro­fes­sion­als.

Tewarie agrees with stake­hold­ers

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of TTC­SI Ni­rad Tewarie agreed with the stake­hold­ers, stat­ing that TTC­SI is not in sup­port of over­reg­u­la­tion.He said TTC­SI was al­so against the in­clu­sion of all ser­vice providers be­ing reg­u­lat­ed."We do be­lieve there should be a sys­tem of recog­ni­tion of qual­i­fi­ca­tion as to al­low pro­fes­sion­als in the ser­vices sec­tor that re­quire reg­u­la­tion to sell their ser­vices more eas­i­ly around the world," Tewarie rec­om­mend­ed.He said reg­u­la­tions should not make it hard­er to do busi­ness.

The third is­sue which need­ed ad­dress­ing was the mech­a­nism for the free move­ment of peo­ple.De­spite the slow process of this har­mon­i­sa­tion pol­i­cy frame­work, TTC­SI is work­ing with oth­er re­gion­al coali­tions on an in­tra-re­gion­al mu­tu­al recog­ni­tion agree­ment for ar­chi­tects.TTC­SI hopes that this arrange­ment would then lead to a mu­tu­al recog­ni­tion agree­ment with Eu­rope to fa­cil­i­tate the move­ment of lo­cal ar­chi­tects in­to the Eu­ro­pean mar­kets.

TTC­SI re­mains com­mit­ted to the over­all process as its man­date is to pro­vide busi­ness sup­port, fa­cil­i­tate and to as­sist the lo­cal ser­vices sec­tor to be­come in­creas­ing­ly com­pet­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and to con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment and growth of the na­tion­al econ­o­my.The Trade Min­istry's Charles asked the stake­hold­ers who dis­ap­proved of be­ing li­cenced to sub­mit in a week's time a de­fin­i­tive ra­tio­nale why they should not be and bench­mark it against sim­i­lar pro­fes­sions glob­al­ly.

Among those present were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from T&T Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants, As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­al Es­tates, T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Mid­wives, T&T Green Coun­cil, Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Tech­ni­cal Ter­tiary & Pro­fes­sion­al Ed­u­ca­tors of T&T, Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, In­for­ma­tion & Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­o­gy So­ci­ety, As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers, PMI South­ern Caribbean Chap­ter, Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal As­so­ci­a­tion, T&T Op­tometrists As­so­ci­a­tion and T&T So­ci­ety of Plan­ners In­sti­tute of Ar­chi­tects.

Back­ground to pol­i­cy

Cari­com mem­ber states have com­mit­ted to de­vel­op their ser­vices mar­kets, in­clud­ing the mar­ket for pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, through a two-prong ap­proach of in­tra-Cari­com mar­ket in­te­gra­tion and lib­er­al­i­sa­tion with third states.

Mar­ket in­te­gra­tion for ser­vices is to be achieved through the cre­ation of a sin­gle space for ser­vices. The agree­ment be­tween Cari­com mem­ber states sets out the broad pol­i­cy frame­work for the pro­vi­sion of ser­vices in the CSME and gives com­mu­ni­ty na­tion­als the right to pro­vide ser­vices any­where in the CSME.

In ad­di­tion, mem­ber states al­so com­mit them­selves to the goal of free move­ment of com­mu­ni­ty na­tion­als. The open­ing up of the in­ter­nal mar­ket to third states is to be achieved through the pro­gres­sive lib­er­al­i­sa­tion of the sin­gle space for ser­vices to the na­tion­als of third states through Free Trade agree­ments.

Notwith­stand­ing the above ap­proach­es, there is still no re­gion­al pol­i­cy on the pro­vi­sion of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices to en­sure that the ben­e­fits, ef­fec­tive­ness and pos­i­tive im­pact are re­alised. Mem­ber states are in the process of prepar­ing a Re­gion­al Strate­gic Plan for Ser­vices and have iden­ti­fied pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices as one of the pri­or­i­ty sec­tors. To this end there­fore, it is be­ing pro­posed that a re­gion­al pol­i­cy on the pro­vi­sion of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices be enun­ci­at­ed.