To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

Yet an­oth­er Cari­com sum­mit has come and gone but what re­mains con­stant is the re­gion's fail­ure to im­ple­ment ma­jor pro­grammes such as the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME).

Added to that, at the Mon­tego Bay Sum­mit which end­ed on Wednes­day, is the in­abil­i­ty and or re­fusal of cer­tain gov­ern­ments to in­vest in the Cari­com De­vel­op­ment Fund and to bear the cost of im­ple­ment­ing a re­gion-wide se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem. It has be­come clich�d for Cari­com lead­ers at the open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies of the heads of gov­ern­ment meet­ings to take the blame for the slow pace of eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion and more. While the grand ad­mis­sions are made, the pro­posed in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion across the re­gion for the ex­port mar­ket un­der the CSME re­mains un­ful­filled with the mem­ber states un­able to win new sources of for­eign cur­ren­cy.��

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had a time of her life mak­ing the point that this coun­try can­not con­tin­ue to sub­sidise mem­ber states with de­vel­op­ment fund­ing. More­over, she was sure that fund­ing of projects by T&T must now be di­rect­ly tied to some form of ben­e­fit to be reaped. Yes, it is ac­knowl­edged that T&T's man­u­fac­tur­ers thrive in the mar­kets of Cari­com, they be­ing the most ef­fi­cient and suc­cess­ful man­u­fac­tur­ers and ex­porters in the re­gion. How­ev­er, that has come at a price and oth­er coun­tries can­not se­ri­ous­ly ask them to re­treat from that po­si­tion of em­i­nence. In­deed, what oth­er Cari­com states need to do is to as­sist their man­u­fac­tur­ers to be­come world com­pet­i­tive through the long talked about bring­ing to­geth­er of re­sources, hu­man and ma­te­r­i­al, to be able to ex­port to the rest of the world.

In this re­spect, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar must de­mand that mem­ber states take mea­sures to ad­vance the CSME be­fore there can be any com­mit­ment to make a fur­ther con­tri­bu­tion to the Cari­com De­vel­op­ment Fund. One ex­pects too that by the end of the bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions be­tween Prime Min­is­ters Gold­ing and Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Caribbean Air­lines there will emerge con­crete ben­e­fits for this coun­try as well as the tourist economies of the re­gion. How­ev­er, it can­not be that Caribbean Air­lines will be made to func­tion in the best in­ter­est of the tourism economies of the re­gion while T&T pro­vides sub­si­dies for the op­er­a­tion of the air­line. The Gov­ern­ment should al­so link fur­ther fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to sup­port for Caribbean Air­lines in be­ing named as the flag car­ri­er of re­cip­i­ent coun­tries which would ben­e­fit from air­lift in­to their tourism-de­pen­dent economies. The gov­ern­ments of those coun­tries, at least ini­tial­ly, must come for­ward with eq­ui­ty cap­i­tal of one kind or the oth­er for the Trinidad-based air­line.�

With re­gard to the dan­ger of not be­ing able to achieve a re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­da, be­cause this coun­try can­not fund the US$40 mil­lion need­ed, that is a par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous out­come. It is well known that drug deal­ers and gun-run­ners op­er­ate in the re­gion with­out con­cern for na­tion­al bound­aries. There­fore the ab­sence of a well-fund­ed se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem will af­fect all mem­ber states.�But the T&T Prime Min­is­ter is cor­rect that this coun­try can­not and should not shoul­der re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the en­tire project.�How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar's in­sis­tence against this coun­try's par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice as T&T's fi­nal court of ap­peal, an­oth­er note of neg­a­tiv­i­ty at the sum­mit, is quite wor­ry­ing.

More­over, the Prime Min­is­ter sound­ed quite dis­mis­sive in her state­ment on the CCJ, say­ing that it is not a mat­ter of im­por­tance in the scheme of things. She, like oth­er Cari­com lead­ers who con­tin­ue to rel­e­gate the de­vel­op­ment of a qual­i­ty Caribbean court as be­ing of lit­tle sig­nif­i­cance, must un­der­stand that non-ma­te­r­i­al mat­ters, such as the re­gion hav­ing its own fi­nal court of ap­peal, are of im­mense qual­i­ta­tive val­ue.�Such a court can­not be mea­sured in ma­te­r­i­al terms. Rather, it should be con­sid­ered of in­cal­cu­la­ble val­ue to hu­man de­vel­op­ment and a Caribbean civil­i­sa­tion.