Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

As re­gion­al lead­ers con­vene in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, to­day for the 49th Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing, this coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter will be un­ex­plain­ably ab­sent. This means Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has cho­sen to skip the first Cari­com meet­ing of this mag­ni­tude to oc­cur dur­ing her sec­ond term as Prime Min­is­ter.

This has drawn sharp crit­i­cism from for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, who told Guardian Me­dia that this is send­ing all the wrong mes­sages to the re­gion­al body.

Lead­ing up to to­day’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Mon­tego Bay Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was list­ed on Cari­com’s web­site as one of the open­ing speak­ers at the event.

How­ev­er, there had been no of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar would be at­tend­ing.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs con­firmed that Min­is­ter Sean Sobers would lead the del­e­ga­tion along­side Cab­i­net col­league, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

The re­lease stat­ed that both min­is­ters would be joined by Mr Ran­dall Karim, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (Ag) of the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs and Head of the For­eign Ser­vice; H E Ralph Maraj, Am­bas­sador to Cari­com; and Ms Ayesha Whar­ton, Di­rec­tor, Cari­com and Caribbean Af­fairs.

To un­der­score Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s in­volve­ment de­spite her ab­sence, the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry said the Prime Min­is­ter will still play a role in the pro­ceed­ings over the next three days.

“The Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, MP, Prime Min­is­ter of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, sent writ­ten greet­ings to Prime Min­is­ter Hol­ness and briefed her min­is­ters on the crit­i­cal role placed by her ad­min­is­tra­tion on re­la­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty. In ad­vance of the meet­ing, she en­gaged vir­tu­al­ly in dis­cus­sions with her re­gion­al coun­ter­parts to ad­vance Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tions on sev­er­al items on the agen­da.”

It stat­ed that the agen­da items in­clud­ed, “Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my; Ad­vanc­ing the Cari­com Agri-Food Sys­tems Agen­da– Pri­ori­tis­ing Re­gion­al Food and Nu­tri­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty; and the Re­port from the Prime-Min­is­te­r­i­al Sub-Com­mit­tee on Ex­ter­nal Ne­go­ti­a­tions.”

It was al­so an­nounced that Min­is­ter Sobers will meet with his Ja­maican coun­ter­part to dis­cuss re­gion­al en­er­gy ini­tia­tives, trade and in­vest­ment re­la­tions, cul­tur­al ex­changes, im­mi­gra­tion is­sues and po­ten­tial ar­eas of co­op­er­a­tion in na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter Alexan­der will meet with Ja­maica’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry to dis­cuss mat­ters of “mu­tu­al con­cern”.

Ques­tions sent to the Prime Min­is­ter on her ab­sence were unan­swered.

How­ev­er, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has ad­ver­tised her as the fea­tured speak­er for its Mon­day Night Re­port in Clarke Road, Pe­nal, on Mon­day, which co­in­cides with the first day of closed ses­sion meet­ings with the re­gion­al heads in Ja­maica.

But Dr Browne be­lieves the pres­ence of Sobers and Alexan­der does not com­pen­sate for her ab­sence.

“Send­ing two brand new min­is­ters and a brand new PS MF­CA to lead a T&T del­e­ga­tion at a Cari­com Heads Meet­ing, two months af­ter be­ing elect­ed, is just not good enough from a found­ing mem­ber state of Cari­com,” he said.

Dr Browne said there are mat­ters to dis­cuss that go be­yond an or­di­nary min­is­ter’s in­flu­ence.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has lead re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy with­in the Cari­com qua­si-Cab­i­net, and this is a crit­i­cal time for the co­or­di­na­tion and lead­er­ship of both is­sues with­in the re­gion. The way these heads meet­ings are con­duct­ed, min­is­ters gen­er­al­ly do not lead the dis­cus­sions, in­clud­ing in cau­cus, and it is the voice of a head of gov­ern­ment that car­ries the pri­ma­ry weight and in­flu­ence.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, mean­while, said, “If the head of Gov­ern­ment is not there, then our rep­re­sen­ta­tives won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have a seat at the ta­ble.”

He added, “They will be in the meet­ings but that is as much as they could do, they don’t have a say at the meet­ing, and that would be a con­cern for every­body who wants to think about Cari­com. I agree with that no­tion that the min­is­ters may not have much of a say and what they may very well be do­ing is hav­ing side meet­ings with var­i­ous oth­er min­is­ters but that is as much as they could say.”

Dr Ra­goonath said he would have liked the Prime Min­is­ter to at­tend, al­though he not­ed that the pres­ence of Min­is­ters Sobers and Alexan­der may not be as detri­men­tal as sug­gest­ed by her pre­de­ces­sor.

He, how­ev­er, said this rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com go­ing for­ward.

“That is one of the con­cerns that will re­main, how close the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar regime wants to re­main with Cari­com? Be­cause I gath­er that we may see in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture, meet­ings be­tween mem­ber states of Cari­com and Trinidad and To­ba­go, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly Cari­com as a block.”

In 2011, Per­sad-Bisses­sar fa­mous­ly stat­ed to a Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis that Trinidad and To­ba­go is “not an ATM card” to the re­gion.

This was seen as a clear sig­nal of a more con­ser­v­a­tive ap­proach to re­gion­al as­sis­tance, and a shift away from what may be per­ceived as a “hand­out” cul­ture while still af­firm­ing this coun­try’s com­mit­ment to Cari­com.

Al­so com­ment­ing on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence was for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who sim­ply said, “What’s new? Are you sur­prised?”