The communique released on the just-concluded 23rd Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has sought to inspire expectations for “change”.
The five-page statement, however, may well have raised more questions than provided answers on how the promise of “change” would be realized.
It is doubtful that with just about three and half months before the next regular annual CARICOM Summit – scheduled for St Lucia in the first week of July – precious little that’s really new can be expected, given the functioning of business at the Georgetown-based Secretariat.
Or, for that matter, the priorities to emerge for the coming ‘Castries Summit’.
Two related decisions may suffice to illustrate why there is pessimism over the promise of “change” for improved management and implementation processes as decided by the leaders at their two-day meeting in Suriname:
First, the vehicle they identified to provide “oversight” in the process of restructuring of the Secretariat for “improved regional governance”, namely the CARICOM Bureau, is basically a small management committee of three changing Heads of Government between twice half yearly meetings.
Mandates are often quite general and the bureau is not known to have the political clout of even an empowered Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee.
Secondly, the Heads have agreed that the Bureau’s “oversight” for the promised “change” in improved governance would follow an initiative by new Secretary General Irwin LaRocque for the proposed “restructuring” of the Secretariat “through the recruitment of a “change facilitator”.
This “change facilitator” – yet to be recruited – is expected to “support” the Secretary General in making a reality of an envisaged new administrative structure. Together, they would work with “an internal group from the Secretariat to facilitate regional governance and implementation . . .” of policies and programmes.
The reality is that the language used in the communiqué cannot conceal the fact that while Secretary General LaRocque spoke enthusiastically about the Suriname inter-sessional meeting being the “initiator of this era of change within an environment of reform”, much remains undone and unknown.
In embracing the recommendations of the European Union-funded consultancy report on Turning Around CARICOM – and specifically the administrative structure and functions of the Secretariat – are our Heads of Government now disposed to extending executive authority to a management team?
Further, what skills/expertise would be required in the recruitment of the so-called “change facilitator”?
Other questions will undoubtedly arise.
