Analysis by Rickey Singh
NEW INFORMATION coming out of the ‘Nassau Summit’ of CARICOM leaders confirm that they remain at a distance from advancing the governance mechanisms of the Community, foremost being the long-mooted high-level commission, empowered with executive authority, to ensure implementation of decisions.

Further, as they continue to reaffirm commitment to the creation of a CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) by 2015, it is becoming evident that the quasi-cabinet system introduced some years ago, with specific portfolio responsibilities assigned to the Heads of Government, requires urgent critical review in the face of yawning gaps between discussions and decisions that are shelved or being ignored.

While a new emphasis is being placed on the establishment of Prime Ministerial Sub-committees — the latest one created by the March 7-8 meeting in Nassau on ‘Functional Cooperation’ — there are also new questions on the criteria for selection to these bodies, their modalities of operations, and how assessments are made to determine their effectiveness.

In this prevailing situation, and with no action yet taken on mandated reports, some more than five years old, pertaining to the need for appropriate restructuring for better functioning of the CARICOM Secretariat, the Heads of Government decided at their Nassau meeting to now establish a sub-committee, comprised of some of them, to consider the ‘role and status’ of the relationship between the Community Secretariat and the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM); and the latter’s relationship with the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED).

Why this has emerged in 2008 as such a priority is yet to be officially explained, other than that the initiative for this sub-committee has come against the backdrop of known tension in relations between the CRNM and the Secretariat.

A significance of relevance, on this issue, is the notable omission of St Vincent and the Grenadines from this sub-committee, since it pertains to forms of governance and for which the administration of Prime Minister, Ralph Gonsalves currently holds lead responsibility among the Heads of Government.

Incidentally, St Vincent and the Grenadines is also absent from the seven-member

Prime Ministerial Sub-committee on Functional Cooperation that was created at the Nassau meeting, when it is known that the government in Kingstown currently holds lead responsibility for a most vital area in functional co-operation–air and sea transportation.

Unless, of course, in their wisdom, the new ‘conceptual clarification’ on functional cooperation does not recognise the imperatives of such cooperation at a time of region-wide public discontent.

Functional Cooperation
Nevertheless, it is encouraging that our Heads of Government seem determined to make functional cooperation more meaningful in the lives of nationals of the Caribbean Community.

Consequently, they have accepted the report of an eight-member Task Force on Functional Cooperation and approved the creation of the Prime Ministerial Sub-committee to advance the objectives.

But what does it all mean? For a start, ‘functional cooperation’ has been one of the three main pillars of CARICOM, as outlined in the Treaty of Chaguaramas that brought it into existence back in July 1973.

The two other ‘pillars’ were identified as ‘economic integration’ — which has always had a primary focus — and ‘foreign policy coordination’. Within recent years the enormous challenges posed by the epidemic of crime and violence have compelled CARICOM Heads of Government to establish ‘crime and security’ as the ‘fourth pillar’ of the Community.

The Task Force, established in July 2007 to assess the state of functional cooperation and make recommendations to elevate its place in the march towards the CSME), offered a ‘conceptual clarification’ that more adequately fits the role as a practical and supportive pillar in the overall quest to attain the primary objectives of the region’s integration movement.

Over the years, the dominant features of functional cooperation have been in health, education, culture, broadcasting and information; transportation (air and shipping), meteorological services and hurricane insurance; disaster preparedness, intra-regional public service; harmonisation of the law and legal systems of member states; social security, labour administration and industrial relations; technological and scientific research.

Task Force
The Task Force that was established with a mandate to assess the state of functional cooperation and responses to current and future challenges comprised CARICOM nationals of varying expertise and wide experiences.

Among them were Professor Sir George Alleyne, current Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, along with Dr Edward Greene, chairman of the Task Force, and CARICOM’s Assistant Secretary-General for Human and Social Development, both key players in last year’s special meeting in Port-of-Spain on functional cooperation.

The other Task Force members were Dr Roderick Rainford, a former CARICOM Secretary- General, Professor Denis Benn, Angela Cropper, Jimmy Emmanuel, Dr Carissa Eitenne and Leon Higgs.

The report of the Task Force should serve as a useful tool in helping CARICOM to expand and deepen functional cooperation. A pertinent question, however, is whether the Prime Ministerial Sub-committee on Functional Cooperation, established at the recent CARICOM summit in Nassau, is appropriately comprised to be a vanguard mechanism to accelerate and oversee implementation of decisions.

It has not escaped attention that the chairman of this sub-committee, The Bahamas’ Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, represents a CARICOM state that is not a signatory to the CSME, and is generally viewed as being on the periphery of the regional integration movement.

The criteria for choosing members of Prime Ministerial Sub-committees have never been well explained. Therefore, with the latest creation of another such sub-committee — now on Functional Cooperation — there would be renewed interest in critical assessments of the results flowing from such governance mechanisms, as well as from the CARICOM Bureau itself as a ‘management committee’ that meets between regular Heads of Government and Inter-Sessional conferences.