PM presses Caricom for answers over Barnett reappointment row

Sto­ries by Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­ten­si­fied her call for trans­paren­cy from the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), rais­ing fresh ques­tions about the process that led to the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter chal­lenged doc­u­ments re­leased by Cari­com hours ear­li­er, ac­cus­ing the re­gion­al body of fail­ing to ad­e­quate­ly ex­plain key as­pects of the Feb­ru­ary meet­ing at which the de­ci­sion was tak­en.

At the cen­tre of the dis­pute is a Heads of Gov­ern­ment re­treat held dur­ing the Cari­com Con­fer­ence in St Kitts and Nevis, where Dr Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment was agreed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­gued that Cari­com’s cor­re­spon­dence shows an im­bal­ance in com­mu­ni­ca­tion pri­or­i­ties, claim­ing that mul­ti­ple mes­sages were sent to Trinidad and To­ba­go about dress pro­to­col—specif­i­cal­ly a “Cari­com shirt”—but none ad­dress­ing the reap­point­ment agen­da item.

“Ac­cord­ing to Cari­com’s own doc­u­ments post­ed last night, be­tween Jan­u­ary 19 and Feb­ru­ary 26 (39 days), eight mes­sages were sent to T&T re­gard­ing the soon-to-be leg­endary Cari­com shirt, but ze­ro mes­sages were sent re­gard­ing any agen­da item to reap­point GS Bar­nett. Clear­ly, the shirt was of ut­most sig­nif­i­cance, but the reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al was not,” she said.

She al­so point­ed to a What­sApp mes­sage sent on the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 26—the day of the re­treat—in­di­cat­ing that the ses­sion would be re­strict­ed to Heads of Gov­ern­ment on­ly.

Quot­ing the mes­sage, she not­ed it stat­ed:

“Good morn­ing, For­eign Min­is­ters. Chair­man PM Drew has in­di­cat­ed that to­day will be a Heads-on­ly re­treat. Notwith­stand­ing any in­di­ca­tion oth­er­wise, he would like it to re­main Heads on­ly. He apol­o­gis­es for any in­con­ve­nience. Min­is­ters should there­fore re­main for the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Meet­ing to com­plete its work, in­clud­ing those agen­da items from the Heads’ agen­da which the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil is to con­sid­er and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions to Heads for adop­tion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter ques­tioned why the mes­sage—ver­i­fied by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Di­rec­tor of Cari­com—had not been ad­dressed by Dr Bar­nett or Cari­com of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Chef de Cab­i­net Jan­ice Miller.

“When will Bar­nett and Miller ad­dress this What­sApp mes­sage?” she asked, sug­gest­ing that For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers may have been de­lib­er­ate­ly ex­clud­ed.

“At best, Min­is­ter Sobers was dis­in­vit­ed be­cause he had no fan­cy Cari­com shirt; at worst, he was dis­in­vit­ed to de­lib­er­ate­ly fa­cil­i­tate Ms Bar­nett’s sur­rep­ti­tious reap­point­ment,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She al­so called for the re­lease of key doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing min­utes of the re­treat meet­ing, Dr Bar­nett’s per­for­mance ap­praisal, records from the 2021 ap­point­ment process, and ad­di­tion­al cor­re­spon­dence ref­er­enced in an April 9 let­ter from Min­is­ter Sobers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that the lack of doc­u­men­ta­tion un­der­mines re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and ac­cused Cari­com of at­tempt­ing to avoid ac­count­abil­i­ty while pub­licly dis­cred­it­ing her min­is­ter.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments came short­ly af­ter Cari­com Chair­man and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew is­sued a state­ment fol­low­ing the Twen­ty-Fifth Spe­cial Emer­gency Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment.

The meet­ing was con­vened to ad­dress con­cerns raised by Trinidad and To­ba­go re­gard­ing gov­er­nance and the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al’s reap­point­ment. No­tably, nei­ther Per­sad-Bisses­sar nor any rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Trinidad and To­ba­go at­tend­ed.

In its state­ment, Cari­com said all mem­ber states were prop­er­ly in­formed ahead of the Feb­ru­ary sum­mit, in­clud­ing de­tails of the agen­da, pro­gramme of work, and which items would be ad­dressed in ple­nary, cau­cus, or Heads-on­ly re­treat ses­sions.

It added that Per­sad-Bisses­sar left St Kitts and Nevis on the evening of Feb­ru­ary 25, be­fore the re­treat sched­uled for the fol­low­ing day.

Cari­com said that at 10.33 pm on Feb­ru­ary 25, For­eign Min­is­ter Sean Sobers con­tact­ed the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al via What­sApp to in­quire whether he should at­tend the re­treat in the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence. He was ad­vised that he could at­tend, as oth­er ab­sent Heads were be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by their For­eign Min­is­ters, but in­di­cat­ed he might not be able to do so due to sea­sick­ness.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, a fol­low-up mes­sage at 12.37 am on Feb­ru­ary 26 not­ed that the Chair­man would un­der­stand if Sobers chose not to at­tend due to the boat jour­ney re­quired to reach the venue. The or­gan­i­sa­tion said Sobers did not sub­se­quent­ly con­firm his at­ten­dance.

Cari­com fur­ther stat­ed that Dr Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment was made un­der Ar­ti­cle 24 of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas dur­ing the re­treat, and that the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al was not present dur­ing de­lib­er­a­tions.

It al­so said at­tempts were made to con­tact Per­sad-Bisses­sar by phone and email be­fore the de­ci­sion was pub­licly an­nounced, but those ef­forts were un­suc­cess­ful. The Chair­man was lat­er asked to re­lay the in­for­ma­tion to Min­is­ter Sobers.

Cari­com in­di­cat­ed that a de­tailed time­line of cor­re­spon­dence lead­ing up to the Feb­ru­ary con­fer­ence would be made avail­able.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter’s han­dling of the mat­ter, warn­ing of po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic and diplo­mat­ic fall­out.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is clear­ly in­ca­pable of diplo­ma­cy. Her UNC is clear­ly in­ca­pable of hon­esty. And the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has com­plete­ly lost its way,” Beck­les said in a state­ment on Sun­day.

She added that the re­gion is “ap­palled” by what she de­scribed as the Prime Min­is­ter’s cam­paign to “false­ly tar­nish, pro­voke, de­stroy, and then leave Cari­com.”

Beck­les warned that the dis­pute could have far-reach­ing con­se­quences, not­ing that in­tra-Cari­com trade gen­er­at­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $7.5 bil­lion for Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2024.

“This is the very last thing we need­ed: a Prime Min­is­ter so pet­ty and vi­cious that she would de­stroy our col­lec­tive fu­ture,” she said, adding that sec­tors such as man­u­fac­tur­ing, ex­ports, ed­u­ca­tion, tourism, and busi­ness­es of all sizes could be af­fect­ed.

She al­so crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence from both the Feb­ru­ary sum­mit and the April emer­gency meet­ing, de­scrib­ing it as “dis­grace­ful and un­for­giv­able.”

“If we leave Cari­com, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will pay the ul­ti­mate price for that reck­less de­ci­sion,” Beck­les said.