Jamaica writes CARICOM expressing concerns over Secretary General’s reappointment

CAS­TRIES, St Lu­cia, Jul 6 (CMC) – Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness says that while his coun­try is not seek­ing to over­turn the de­ci­sion of re­gion­al lead­ers to reap­point Dr Car­la Bar­nett as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM), it re­mains “con­cerned that the ap­proach tak­en has nei­ther re­solved the mat­ter nor pro­mot­ed the spir­it and goals of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas”.

In a Ju­ly 5, 2026 let­ter sent to CARI­COM Chair­man and St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J. Pierre, Prime Min­is­ter Hol­ness wrote that “the length of time de­vot­ed to this agen­da item at­tests to the grav­i­ty and po­ten­tial ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the is­sue at hand”.

He said Kingston’s po­si­tion re­it­er­ates one tak­en on May 8 and that the new let­ter “will ex­pand on the con­cerns ex­pressed re­gard­ing cer­tain pro­ce­dur­al mat­ters”.

“I reaf­firm, at the out­set, that Ja­maica is not, by this let­ter, seek­ing to over­turn the de­ci­sion tak­en in Feb­ru­ary 2026 to reap­point Dr Car­la Bar­nett as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of CARI­COM. How­ev­er, I re­main con­cerned that the ap­proach tak­en has nei­ther re­solved the mat­ter nor pro­mot­ed the spir­it and goals of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas,” he added.

Hol­ness said that, as a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, the fact that one CARI­COM mem­ber state “has for­mal­ly and con­sis­tent­ly ex­pressed op­po­si­tion to a mat­ter, on pro­ce­dur­al and oth­er grounds”, and the fact that the is­sue has since be­come one of pub­lic con­tro­ver­sy, “should be of grave con­cern to us and should not be dis­re­gard­ed”.

“It has be­come clear that we were not all on the same page. There­fore, it is im­por­tant that any con­cerns be ad­dressed in a mean­ing­ful man­ner to re­store co­he­sion, if not uni­ty, which is in­dis­pens­able to the ef­fec­tive func­tion­ing of CARI­COM,” Hol­ness wrote.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has pub­licly crit­i­cised the man­ner in which Bar­nett, the first woman ever ap­point­ed CARI­COM Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, was reap­point­ed by lead­ers dur­ing their re­treat in St Kitts and Nevis in Feb­ru­ary.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said that she will not recog­nise the Be­lizean econ­o­mist when her cur­rent term ends in Au­gust and has since sub­mit­ted a 22-page let­ter to CARI­COM urg­ing re­gion­al lead­ers to seek an opin­ion from the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) on the is­sue.

She has al­so pro­posed that Bar­nett be re­tained on a month-to-month ba­sis un­til there is a de­ter­mi­na­tion by the CCJ.

“Such an in­ter­im ex­ten­sion should be ex­press­ly stat­ed to be with­out prej­u­dice to the le­gal rights or po­si­tions of any mem­ber state, and should not be con­strued as af­firm­ing the va­lid­i­ty of the im­pugned reap­point­ment process.

“Pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the ad­vi­so­ry pro­ceed­ings: (a) the in­cum­bent Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al shall ful­ly re­cuse her­self from the ex­er­cise of any au­thor­i­ty what­so­ev­er or take any de­ci­sion, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, re­gard­ing the said ad­vi­so­ry pro­ceed­ings.

“Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for such ac­tion shall be vest­ed en­tire­ly in the Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al or some oth­er in­de­pen­dent per­son or body.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so ar­gued that the CARI­COM Gen­er­al Coun­sel “shall re­cuse her­self from the mat­ter of the ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion in light of her pri­ma­ry role as an ad­vis­er to the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, who is sub­ject to the pro­posed ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion”.

The con­tents of the let­ters from Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica have be­come a ma­jor talk­ing point for lead­ers who went in­to re­treat on the first work­ing day of their four-day sum­mit.

In his let­ter, a copy of which has been ob­tained by the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC), Prime Min­is­ter Hol­ness said he be­lieves that “the ex­pla­na­tions pro­vid­ed thus far re­gard­ing the process lead­ing to the reap­point­ment have nei­ther ad­vanced pro­ce­dur­al cer­tain­ty nor re­as­sured all mem­ber states”.

“In this re­gard, I urge re­flec­tion, as well as fo­cused and strength­ened en­gage­ment with Trinidad and To­ba­go at both the lev­els of Heads of Gov­ern­ment and the Sec­re­tari­at. Ja­maica will con­tin­ue its own en­gage­ment, mind­ful of the need to en­sure that the con­cerns of all mem­ber states are ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dressed.”

Hol­ness sought to pro­vide a his­tor­i­cal re­view of pre­vi­ous ap­point­ments, adding that the pro­vi­sions that guid­ed the ap­point­ments of the pre­vi­ous two oc­cu­pants of the post, both of whom served fol­low­ing the en­try in­to force of the Re­vised Treaty, in­di­cate that “the tim­ing and the process of reap­point­ment that was tak­en in St Kitts and Nevis in Feb­ru­ary 2026 con­sti­tut­ed a de­par­ture not on­ly from pre­vi­ous prac­tice, but al­so from the Rules of Pro­ce­dure es­tab­lished by the Con­fer­ence”.

Hol­ness said he is “mind­ful that this is­sue has ex­posed our Com­mu­ni­ty to ques­tions and ex­pres­sions of con­cern from both our cit­i­zens and de­vel­op­ment part­ners, all of whom are pay­ing close at­ten­tion to the man­ner in which we re­solve this mat­ter.

“Con­fi­dence in our Com­mu­ni­ty is cru­cial — among our cit­i­zens, mem­ber states and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners — par­tic­u­lar­ly at this junc­ture when we are seek­ing to di­ver­si­fy our part­ner­ships and de­vel­op­ment sup­port.”

He said he wel­comes the on­go­ing work of the Com­mit­tee of Am­bas­sadors to re­view and up­date the Rules of Pro­ce­dure of the Con­fer­ence, with a view to clar­i­fy­ing the process­es present­ly un­der dis­cus­sion.

Hol­ness said that, as a mem­ber state-dri­ven or­gan­i­sa­tion, “the im­por­tance of co­he­sion and con­fi­dence can­not be over­stat­ed.

“Ja­maica looks for­ward to con­tin­ued and re­newed en­gage­ment … in the hope that our Com­mu­ni­ty will ad­vance in a spir­it of uni­ty, trans­paren­cy and sol­i­dar­i­ty — prin­ci­ples which are the cor­ner­stone of our re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion project,” Hol­ness wrote, promis­ing to play his part in this ef­fort.

Source: CMC