St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines  Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Ralph Gon­salves has as­sumed the chair­man­ship of the sub-re­gion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS), high­light­ing a num­ber of com­plaints about the larg­er Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) re­gion­al bloc.

Like St. Lu­cia Op­po­si­tion Leader, Allen Chas­tanet, had done dur­ing the meet­ing of the OECS As­sem­bly on Tues­day, Gon­salves said that to ad­dress some of these is­sues, the OECS may have to de­cou­ple from some el­e­ments of CARI­COM.

Chas­tanet had asked the OECS As­sem­bly, com­pris­ing gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion leg­is­la­tors from the nine-mem­ber group­ing, to con­sid­er what would hap­pen if the sub-re­gion­al group ex­it­ed CARI­COM and ne­go­ti­at­ed bi­lat­er­al agree­ments with the oth­er mem­bers.

How­ev­er, Gon­salves did not go so far, say­ing, “the OECS coun­tries may well, most re­luc­tant­ly by force of cir­cum­stances, have to put on the ta­ble the con­tin­ued rel­e­vance of our par­tic­i­pa­tion in the CSME (CARI­COM Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my), while, of course, re­main­ing in CARI­COM un­til the in­equities re­fer to hear­ing are sat­is­fied”.

The CSME  is an arrange­ment among CARI­COM mem­ber states aimed at cre­at­ing a sin­gle, larg­er eco­nom­ic space by re­mov­ing trade bar­ri­ers and fa­cil­i­tat­ing the free move­ment of goods, ser­vices, peo­ple, cap­i­tal, and tech­nol­o­gy. 

Gon­salves, cur­rent­ly, the longest-serv­ing head of gov­ern­ment in the 15-mem­ber CARI­COM,  not­ed that the OECS has a deep­er lev­el of in­te­gra­tion than CARI­COM.

He said the OECS, as the most-in­te­grat­ed form of the sev­er­al cir­cles of in­te­gra­tion in the Caribbean, al­lows for over­lap­ping mem­ber­ship of sev­er­al re­gion­al en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing CARI­COM, the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ACS), the Com­mu­ni­ty of States of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (CELAC) and the Bo­li­var­i­an Al­liance for Our Amer­i­ca (AL­BA).

“Each of these cir­cles of in­te­gra­tion pro­vides op­ti­mal out­comes for their mem­bers on­ly if they pur­sue the man­dates ef­fec­tive­ly through their own arrange­ments, and al­so lever­age, ef­fi­ca­cious­ly, their points of con­tact and rel­e­vance with the oth­er re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion mech­a­nisms.”

The Vin­cent­ian leader said that with the OECS hav­ing the tight­est lev­el of in­te­gra­tion, its mem­bers “have to make sure that we do in ours and all the oth­ers of which we are mem­bers the best in ac­cor­dance with the man­dates in those or­ga­ni­za­tions and for them to have points of rel­e­vance and con­tact with one an­oth­er, so that all can be co­he­sive, go­ing to­wards cer­tain de­sired ends”.

Gon­salves, how­ev­er, said that in this process, “mul­ti­ple con­tra­dic­tions and chal­lenges arise, and in this re­gard, it is to be se­ri­ous­ly re­gret­ted that CARI­COM has yet to find it pos­si­ble to pro­vide a spe­cif­ic carve out for the OECS with­in its treaty arrange­ments for a spe­cial at­ten­tion be­yond the gen­er­al regime in CARI­COM’s Treaty, chap­ter sev­en of it, cov­er­ing spe­cial treat­ment for dis­ad­van­taged coun­tries, re­gions and eco­nom­ic sec­tors”.

He said both the OECS and CARI­COM have been de­signed as in­te­gra­tion en­ti­ties “to be or­gan­ic as dis­tinct from mech­a­nis­tic.

“This means, in ef­fect, that the strengths and weak­ness­es, lim­i­ta­tions and pos­si­bil­i­ties of each mem­ber state are dis­solved in­to an in­te­grat­ed whole, which is greater than the sum of the in­di­vid­ual parts, from which each be­comes a ben­e­fi­cia­ry and re­ceives val­ue greater than it oth­er­wise would have re­al­ized, had it not been a mem­ber”.

He said the val­ue gar­nered has to be sub­stan­tial­ly ma­te­r­i­al, en­hanc­ing the life, liv­ing and pro­duc­tion of the peo­ple of each mem­ber state, adding that there is great val­ue in small states such as those in CARI­COM and OECS com­ing to­geth­er.

Gon­salves said most peo­ple take so much of those ben­e­fits for grant­ed “that they do not quite ap­pre­ci­ate the val­ue un­til some­thing goes awry.

“Still, if the mem­ber coun­tries with­in the spe­cif­ic re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion en­ti­ty are un­equal­ly yoked in terms of de­ci­sion mak­ing and out­comes, and if not cor­rect­ed, the in­te­gra­tion en­ti­ty may with­er or it may it­self be­come a yoke too bur­den­some for some mem­bers to bear.”

Gon­salves said that in the OECS “this par­tic­u­lar co­nun­drum does not ex­ist or hard­ly so” but in the case of CARI­COM, there are “rel­e­vant queries” which ought to be raised “hon­est­ly yet again.

“First, it is ev­i­dent that the trad­ing arrange­ments of CARI­COM have ben­e­fit­ed the mem­ber states with a larg­er ter­ri­to­r­i­al and eco­nom­ic base, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­spect of man­u­fac­tur­ing com­modi­ties and the com­par­a­tive­ly cheap­er en­er­gy re­source in Trinidad and To­ba­go has ad­di­tion­al­ly made that coun­try’s man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor the un­even ben­e­fi­cia­ry from CARI­COM’s trade in com­modi­ties,” Gon­salves said.

He said that be­fore the OECS signed on to the CSME, the OECS had con­duct­ed a study which con­firmed that “the CARI­COM arrange­ments dis­ad­van­taged the OECS man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

“It is nev­er­the­less true that with­out spe­cial pro­tec­tion of­fered through ar­ti­cle 164 of the CARI­COM treaty to the pro­duc­tion of flour in the OECS, our East­ern Caribbean Flour Mills in St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines’ very ex­is­tence would be in grave jeop­ardy.”

He, how­ev­er, not­ed that this pro­tec­tion for Vin­cent­ian flour, for ex­am­ple, un­der Ar­ti­cle 164 of the re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, “is time-bound pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly and al­ways in jeop­ardy.

“On the last oc­ca­sion on which this mat­ter came up for re­new­al, the op­po­si­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos al­most scut­tled this pro­tec­tion,” Gon­salves said.

“For­tu­nate­ly, my gov­ern­ment was able to se­cure con­tin­ued pro­tec­tion un­der the rules through the com­bined sup­port of the OECS coun­tries, Guyana, Haiti, Be­lize and Suri­name. Next time will the an­chor hold?

“Un­doubt­ed­ly, the pro­duc­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go want to take over the en­tire flour mar­ket in the East­ern Caribbean. We in St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines will draw a line in the sand on this.”

The sec­ond griev­ance Gon­salves raised re­lat­ed to for­eign ex­change, say­ing that the con­trol arrange­ments in Trinidad and To­ba­go have “con­spired to re­duce to near noth­ing­ness a hith­er­to US$12 to US$15 mil­lion an­nu­al trade in agri­cul­tur­al ex­port from St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

“This in­jus­tice has caused man­i­fest ma­te­r­i­al dif­fi­cul­ties to farm­ers and agro traders in my coun­try. Our coun­try pays Trinidad and To­ba­go an­nu­al­ly in ex­cess of US$65 mil­lion. We pay in hard for­eign cur­ren­cy for vis­i­ble ex­ports from Trinidad, main­ly pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts and man­u­fac­tured goods.  But our sis­ter CARI­COM coun­try can­not find less than a miser­ly four mil­lion US dol­lars in for­eign ex­change to pay for our agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts.

“This is ab­solute­ly un­fair and ridicu­lous. Our traders are paid in Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lars, which are not con­vert­ible out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go. In Trinidad, they have to use the mon­ey to buy goods in Trinidad if they want to make some mon­ey on the back end. If they bring up the Trinidad and To­ba­go mon­ey, may as well they bring up Mo­nop­oly mon­ey.”

Gon­salves al­so com­plained about un­re­solved is­sues re­lat­ed to the 2009 col­lapse of the Trinidad-based CLI­CO fi­nan­cial em­pire, which re­sult­ed in hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es for in­sur­ance and oth­er in­vest­ment pol­i­cy hold­ers in the OECS.

“There is still out­stand­ing US$64 mil­lion of the US$100 mil­lion, which the last UNC (Unit­ed Na­tion­al  Con­gress) ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar had ne­go­ti­at­ed as a par­tial set­tle­ment with OECS coun­tries.”

He said the Per­sad Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment paid US$36 mil­lion short­ly be­fore it was vot­ed out of of­fice over 10 years ago, “but the suc­ces­sor ad­min­is­tra­tion has failed or re­fused to ho­n­our the pri­or com­mit­ment.

“We rea­son­ably ex­pect that the new Per­sad Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion will ad­dress this soon­est,” he said, re­fer­ring to the gov­ern­ment that was vot­ed in­to of­fice on April 28.

Gon­salves al­so took is­sue with Port-of-Spain’s con­tin­ued con­trol of the OECS air­space “for its near ex­clu­sive ma­te­r­i­al ben­e­fit through its con­trol of the rel­e­vant over­sight au­thor­i­ty re­mains a con­tentious is­sue, which de­mands ur­gent res­o­lu­tion. This bris­tles.

“Nei­ther Bar­ba­dos nor the OECS has rep­re­sen­ta­tion on that over­sight body. We get no ac­count­ing and there is no trans­paren­cy.”

He said the over­sight body was es­tab­lished as a colo­nial con­struct and since in­de­pen­dence in Trinidad and To­ba­go, has been ac­cord­ed “a mea­sure of seem­ing per­ma­nence”.

Gon­salves said that the then Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go re­alised in prac­tice that the OECS coun­tries were un­equal­ly yoked in CARI­COM, and made com­pen­sato­ry arrange­ments by the es­tab­lish­ment of a spe­cial fund to as­sist OECS coun­tries.

He said Man­ning was a “deeply com­mit­ted re­gion­al­ist in the­o­ry and prac­tice” and en­sured that for­eign ex­change was avail­able for Vin­cent­ian agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts.

“He, too, was al­ways com­pli­ant with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s con­tri­bu­tion to the CARI­COM De­vel­op­ment fund, the CDF, which was es­tab­lished un­der Sec­tion 158 of the re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas to as­sist with the so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of dis­ad­van­taged coun­tries, re­gions and sec­tors in CARI­COM.”

Gon­salves not­ed that the Man­ning Vil­lage in his con­stituen­cy is named “in ho­n­our of this great Trinida­di­an and Caribbean leader on ac­count of his pro­found sol­i­dar­i­ty, a pearl per­haps greater than his tribe.

“I want to name an­oth­er vil­lage af­ter an­oth­er leader of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I hope it will be called Kam­la vil­lage.”

Gon­salves said that up to ear­li­er this year, and con­tin­u­ing, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica have baulked at mak­ing their as­sessed con­tri­bu­tions to the CARI­COM De­vel­op­ment Fund.

“It has been an ex­er­cise for the rest of CARI­COM, akin to pulling teeth with­out anaes­the­sia — ex­treme­ly painful and tir­ing.”

He said the OECS coun­tries had even­tu­al­ly signed on to the CSME in 2003, two years af­ter the sign­ing of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.

“We did so with our eyes wide open. We knew of the chal­lenges, but we put in the bal­ance at least three oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions.”

Gon­salves said the OECS had weighed the bun­dle of spe­cial treat­ment mea­sures, in­clud­ing the CDF and a pro­tec­tive mar­ket for some of our com­modi­ties in chap­ter sev­en of the treaty for dis­ad­van­taged coun­tries, like the OECS mem­bers.

“Sec­ond­ly, the more gen­er­al and im­por­tant CSME pro­vi­sions re­lat­ing to free move­ment of per­sons and cap­i­tal and the like of­fered pos­si­bil­i­ties for the OECS.

“And third­ly, there was the vi­tal con­sid­er­a­tion of the en­dur­ing val­ue of be­long­ing to CARI­COM as an in­te­grat­ed com­mu­ni­ty of na­tions and its func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion work in health, ed­u­ca­tion, dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and se­cu­ri­ty and the co­or­di­na­tion of our re­gion’s for­eign pol­i­cy.”

Gon­salves, how­ev­er, not­ed that the Ba­hamas, as a mem­ber state of CARI­COM, is a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of all the non-CSME val­ues of CARI­COM, while opt­ing out of the CSME pro­vi­sions.

He there­fore sug­gest­ed that the OECS may have to con­sid­er ex­it­ing the CSME un­til the in­equal­i­ties are rec­ti­fied.

“In that or any event, we are called up­on to for­ti­fy ever­more the OECS,” Gon­salves said.

“Un­doubt­ed­ly, giv­en the gen­er­al lev­el of de­vel­op­ment of the OECS, the tight­ly drawn na­ture of its in­te­gra­tion mech­a­nism and the re­sources res­i­dent in the en­tire OECS, there are im­mense pos­si­bil­i­ties ahead for our OECS, de­spite our lim­i­ta­tions and even dif­fer­ences, we must seize them ur­gent­ly. We know what we have to do, and we must be laser-fo­cused in do­ing that,” he said.

“Our man­dates are in the Re­vised Treaty of Bas­seterre and in the agree­ments with our as­so­ciate mem­ber states. To­geth­er, we can do and be much more than we are. So let us set about it with en­er­gy and will, vi­sion and skill, plus the X fac­tor of draw­ing out for de­vel­op­men­tal pur­pos­es, the ge­nius and hid­den re­sources of all kinds res­i­dent in our peo­ple,” Gon­salves said.

The OECS Au­thor­i­ty will meet in cau­cus on Wednes­day.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vin­cent, Ju­ly 18, CMC –

CMC/kc/ir/2025