One the key features of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) is the free movement of people, goods, capital and services among member states.
However, a number of issues are still to be resolved in order to ensure hassle-free entry of selected professions into Caribbean territories.
The April 1 BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY reported that the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries was working to draw attention to the challenges being faced by local service providers at the borders of CARICOM member states.
According to executive director Lisa Cummins, the majority of professionals stated the purpose of their visit as vacation or pleasure in order to avoid the questioning and red tape to which they are often subjected if they state that they are on business.
“If I’m moving as a media worker to cover an event and I arrive at the border of a neighbouring member state I ought to be allowed to enter as a temporary person but we’re finding that we’re getting reports of the person being allowed to enter but their equipment being held at the border,” she said.
“What we want to do is to start the dialogue about what exactly the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas provides for with respect to the freedom of movement of professionals and skilled workers throughout the region, what the movement regime connotes for business and economic growth and expansion of our businesses and how some of those bottlenecks and challenges need to be addressed,” Cummins said.
The executive director added that not only did such challenges prevent Barbadian service providers from fully benefiting from the Treaty, but it also made it difficult for data to be collected on the export of services throughout the region.
Cummins said the Caribbean Network of Service Coalitions would be tackling the issue of freedom of movement over the next two years.
“Every coalition should be working in tandem with their national authorities to ensure that the freedom of movement regime is indeed implemented and our service providers have an equal opportunity to benefit from what was envisaged in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas in Chapter Three,” she said.
In the September 29, 2010 DAILY NATION a top CARICOM official pointed out that although the CSME may be functioning, there were still quite a few imperfections that needed to be ironed out.
The programme manager at the CARICOM Secretariat’s CSME Unit, Ivor Carryl, said the CSME was still grappling with the free movement of labour within the territories, a cultural gap and some countries’ reluctance to do business outside of their own territories.
“We have to deal with the free movement of skills. What drives an economy is its people, and free movement is a pivotal driver of the economy,” he said.
Carryl also hammered home the point that there was a need to open up the “market space” so that people could work freely in other territories instead of honing their skills and taking them to countries outside of the CSME.
He said it was sad that every country in the CSME framework did not have a registrar in place for their service providers, which would enable those hoping to work in other countries to do so without any inconvenience.
Meanwhile, in the January 27, 2011 DAILY NATION Prime Minister Freundel Stuart suggested that the Barbados Government was taking a position of sovereignty first, freedom of movement second.
He said Government had made the point that “because you are committed to freedom of movement and because you are committed to the realization of a Single Market and Economy, it does not mean that you give up your sovereignty as a nation and it certainly does not mean that you turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to issues of national security”.
Stuart said that the immigration laws of Barbados had not been repealed and that all Government asked was that “the immigration laws be obeyed”.
“Barbados is reviled and persecuted and is sometimes described as not being faithful to the regional project. But there is freedom of movement in Barbados, as long as our immigration laws are observed and as long as all of the other security issues are taken care of.
“Whether we use a passport or whether we use some other kind of instrument, there still has to be oversight and supervision of the movement of people.
“We do not have all saints in this region. I don’t know that all the people who move through this region have taken vows of sanctity or chastity.
“So we have to have laws and regulations in place to ensure that even though people are moving, their movement is consistent with the national security and all the other national interests of Barbados.
“And what we ask for ourselves, we are also prepared to allow the other countries in the region.
“I don’t know that Barbadians quarrel because they have to observe the immigration laws of another country in the Caribbean,” he said.
In the March 29, 2012 DAILY NATION Jamaican senator Floyd Morris said governments opposed to free movement of labour within the Caribbean should realize it is a way of stimulating economic growth throughout the area.
He suggested that it was one way to utilize the talents of the growing numbers of “unemployed and underemployed” for the collective benefit of the region.
“I have no doubt that we would see an improvement in the cost of production if we can get that excess labour shifting around to places that need it,” Morris said.
Stressing he was “an unrepentant Caribbean nationalist”, the senator added: “I believe that if as a people we are going to survive in the new global dispensation, we have to work together and in working together we have to free up the system to allow for nationals to work, study, play right across the spectrum of the Caribbean.”
