Analyst advises T&T to put forward its own candidate for top regional post

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Trinidad and To­ba­go should put for­ward a can­di­date for the post of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, giv­en that Cari­com’s rules pro­vide for a vote when there is an ob­jec­tion con­cern­ing its Ar­ti­cle 24 pro­to­col, says po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed.

Mo­hammed spoke yes­ter­day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Mon­day called out Cari­com for trans­paren­cy on the “sur­rep­ti­tious and odi­ous process” used to reap­point Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett. Stat­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ob­jec­tion to what oc­curred with the reap­point­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T there­fore main­tains that the reap­point­ment was not un­der­tak­en in ac­cor­dance with Ar­ti­cle 24 of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, which re­quires for­mal con­sid­er­a­tion and ap­point­ment by the Cari­com con­fer­ence.

Yes­ter­day, Cari­com sources said Cari­com’s Rule Five states that a sev­en-day no­tice is need­ed for any emer­gency meet­ing and the pur­pose must be giv­en.

But Mo­hammed said, “It would be in­ter­est­ing to know what the agen­da for any pro­posed Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing may in­clude. Giv­en the cur­rent state of af­fairs, there is re­al­ly on­ly one is­sue that is ur­gent.”

“It is wor­thy to note the si­lence of Cari­com Heads since the an­nounce­ment of the reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al. T&T has ob­ject­ed to the ap­point­ment, and there­fore, it trig­gers a need for heads of Gov­ern­ment to meet and dis­cuss. But var­i­ous ques­tions arise.

“One must ask, giv­en the ex­tent of the con­tro­ver­sy, should the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al not re­cuse her­self from any meet­ing held on the mat­ter and any dis­cus­sions re­gard­ing her po­si­tion? Has the Cari­com Chair­man been pro­vid­ed with mis­lead­ing ad­vice as it per­tains to the reap­point­ment? On whose ad­vice was the Cari­com Chair re­ly­ing? If the ad­vice to the Chair of Cari­com was in­deed mis­lead­ing, what ac­tion will be tak­en?

“Why has there been no re­sponse to the let­ter writ­ten by the Prime Min­is­ter of T&T from the Cari­com Chair or the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al to date? Will there be an apol­o­gy to the T&T Prime Min­is­ter?

Cit­ing T&T’s ob­jec­tion to the sit­u­a­tion since the reap­point­ment was not un­der­tak­en ac­cord­ing to Ar­ti­cle 24 of Cari­com’s Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, Mo­hammed added, “Giv­en that the rules pro­vide for a vote when there is an ob­jec­tion on the ba­sis of Ar­ti­cle 24, I think T&T should put for­ward a can­di­date of im­mac­u­late cal­i­bre and stand­ing.”

“I be­lieve it is time for re­form of the Cari­com holis­ti­cal­ly,” Mo­hammed added.