Now that CARICOM Finance Ministers have finally met
By Rickey Singh
WE SHOULD know by today the extent of the progress achieved by the Caribbean Community's Ministers of Finance in coping with a packed 13-item agenda for their two-day meeting which concluded in Kingston, Jamaica yesterday. The meeting itself has long been awaited, since CARICOM Finance Ministers seem to have lost the enthusiasm for regular meetings, even for the one-day event that used to take place prior to a regular annual CARICOM Summit. Neither the Minister of Finance of Guyana, President Bharrat Jagdeo, nor of Trinidad and Tobago, Brian Kuei Tung, was among those expected for the meeting at the time of writing. And the hope was that at least enough of them would have shown up so that outstanding business of urgent importance to the Community could be addressed. Among the `priority' agenda issues referred to the Finance Ministers - some of them also heads of government- by the last CARICOM Summit of July this year in Port-of-Spain were: * The global financial crisis and implications for CARICOM states; and operationalisation of Protocol Two of the Community Treaty that deals with the rights of establishment, provision of services and free movement of capital in preparation for a single market and economy. * An independent financing mechanism for the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), expected to be inaugurated in 2000 (with Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago being the initial members); and consideration of a Strategic Plan for the Caribbean Development Bank; * Also, a proposal for a Caribbean Lotto and the formulation of a strategy to effectively respond to a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But the Finance Ministers meeting in Jamaica has served not only to highlight the number of important issues to be resolved ahead of the long-awaited single market and economy, now expected to be inaugurated in 2000. It has also provided a reminder of the problem being posed for institutions of the 26-year-old Community by the number of portfolios often controlled by some heads of government that make it difficult for them to participate, as they should, in meetings organised by the Georgetown-based CARICOM Secretariat. Basically, the problem seems one of a case of too heavy a domestic load by some heads of government that is affecting the Community's work programmes. Two of the institutions known to have suffered perhaps more than most are the Council for Finance and Planning and the Standing Committee of Ministers of Information and Communication.
The reason simply has to do with the difficulties of heads of government who also have portfolio responsibilities for Finance, Information and Foreign Affairs to make the necessary adjustments in their work agenda to attend such meetings across the Community. In the process, they could short-change not just national but regional interests. Except for the attendance by some Finance Ministers for the inaugural meeting last year in St. Lucia of the new Council for Finance and Planning, there has been few meetings within recent years of Finance Ministers. When a meeting was arranged for February this year in Kingston, Jamaica, to discuss some pressing matters pertaining to fiscal and monetary policies, only three of the Community Finance Ministers turned up: Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Barbados, Owen Arthur, host Finance Minister, Omar Davies of Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago's Finance Minister, Kuei Tung. This time around, Kuei Tung has been kept away, I gathered, by a bond-raising issue commitment in the USA. And in the case of Guyana, President Jagdeo has conveyed to Secretary General Edwin Carrington, his regret at being unable to attend. Of course, as President Jagdeo not only continues to be responsible for Finance, but is also shouldering responsibility for the Ministry of Trade and Tourism due to the illness of his colleague, Michael Shree Chan. Sooner than later he would have to appoint a new Trade Minister, and at least a Junior Finance Minister. It was disappointment over the large absence of Finance Ministers for last February's scheduled meeting in Jamaica, that contributed to Prime Minister Arthur's subsequent public pronouncement about the need for Finance Ministers to take their responsibilities more seriously in the interest of advancing the goals of the region's economic integration movement. Arthur is one of some seven heads of government of CARICOM who is also Finance Minister, and has lead responsibility among CARICOM heads for advancing arrangements for the single market and economy. Following last January's general election, Arthur gave up responsibility for Information to his Attorney General and Home Affairs Minister, David Simmons. But while he served as Information Minister, he too was among those whose failure to be available for a meeting of Information Ministers kept making this a non-event for some four years. The last occasion when a meeting of Information Ministers took place was in St. Kitts in December 1995. Since then, with changes in the structures of the Community, it was decided to have responsibility for Information and Communication fall within either the Council for Finance and Planning or the Council for Human and Social Development. But this issue itself remains unresolved. The question remains: When will Information Ministers meet, under whatever institutional mechanism? The Community Secretariat is hoping that it could be within the first quarter of 2000 with a priority being a region-wide education programme on CARICOM and what it is seeking to achieve for the region's people. In the meantime, we have to assess the outcome of the just-concluded overdue meeting of Finance Ministers, some recommendations from which, including financing the Caribbean Court of Justice, will be for the consideration of next month's special meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government in Trinidad.
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