The CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) will not work unless people are allowed to move freely and inexpensively within the region, says frequent flyer and regional businessman Robert Pitcher.
Furthermore, he has suggested that Caribbean leaders were allowing their differences to get in the way when it comes to some critical issues regarding the CARICOM movement and that should not be the case.
“We have to realize that in the 21st century, if we intend to be a political and economic powerhouse, we have to live and work in harmony with each other – [but] we are not doing that,” Pitcher told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY in a recent interview.
“The governments of the Caribbean have agreed that certain professionals are allowed to move freely from one island to the next.
“I would like to say that it should not [just] be certain professionals – as long as you are a professional, you should be allowed to move freely from one country to the next to work and offer your service.
“And one has to understand that if a professional person is travelling from one island to the next it has to be affordable to travel; but [governments] fail to recognize that,” argued a passionate Pitcher, saying that each country would set a limit on the number of professionals they could accommodate.
About the long anticipated fast ferry service for the Eastern Caribbean, the airline commentator said he believed there was too much political interference to get the sea transport service up and running.
“This new ferry service that we have been talking about all along is being used as a political football . . . . For CARICOM and CSME to work, unless the politicians really sit down and be truthful to themselves first, then we are going nowhere very fast.
“CSME cannot work unless you can move from one island to the next at an affordable cost, whether it is by ferry or aircraft,” said Pitcher, and “Barbados will feel the [effect] in the next couple of years” if travel was not made affordable soon.
In January, Trinidad and Tobago’s Transport Minister Devant Maharaj announced that Barbadian-based Fast Caribbean Ltd had been selected to manage the regional ferry service scheduled to come on stream this year and to be based in Trinidad. (MM)