For the first time, Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Stuart Young has been appointed to act as prime minister, while Dr Keith Rowley attends the 47th Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community taking place in Grenada.
Minister of Finance Colm Imbert, who usually acts as prime minister, is said to be in Europe on holiday, according to Government sources.
For the Caricom conference, Rowley has been accompanied by Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Dr Amery Browne and Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Reginald Armour, SC.
The meeting originally scheduled to take place from July 1 to 3 was delayed as Hurricane Beryl caused widespread devastation in Grenada, severely impacting the islands of Carriacou and Petit Mart, and several other Caricom countries.
But, as Grenada continues to rebuild, Caricom’s Secretary General Dr Carla Barrnett called on the region to be more focused on tangible outputs to ensure the development and prosperity of the regional group and its people.
Speaking at the opening of the conference, she added that another important focus for the region is to rally around Haiti.
“My hope is that as we rise from this 47th meeting more aware, more confident of our strength and more focused on the tangible outputs, food, health, shelter, education, social interaction and social justice; that will ensure the development and prosperity of our Caribbean community and its people...The coming months are crucial to Haiti’s future stability and Caricom remains ready to continue its support as needed,” Barnett said.
Outgoing Caricom Chair and President of Guyana Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali called for more investment in border security.
Ali said, “We share an important demographic space and in sharing this demographic space, our commitment to the rule of law, to democracy, to freedom must be unshakeable. Unshakeable! Our commitment to these three things must be unshakeable.
“But, our commitment to ensuring that the societies we build have a safeguard that will disallow the type of weapons that are getting into our borders. Whether it is the movement of drugs, we have to ensure we build stronger systems so that our borders are not used as tools to affect other borders and other countries. We have to fight the drug trade, fight transnational crime and to do that we have to invest in security. We have to invest in border protection. We have to meet all international standards and we are committed to do so.”
On the agenda during the Caricom meeting are several issues including the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), climate change and sustainable development, agri-food and nutrition security.
Curacao newest associate member
Meanwhile, Curacao became the newest associate member of Caricom.
Caricom previously comprised 15 member states and five associate members throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.
Curacao joined the likes of Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos to become the sixth associate member.
During yesterday’s opening ceremony of the conference, Curacao’s Prime Minister Gilmar Pisas thanked the Caribbean community for the inclusion.
The meeting is scheduled to end tomorrow.