Govt defends virtual attendance at COFCOR meeting

Gail Alexan­der

The new UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion will con­duct all of­fi­cial over­seas Gov­ern­ment trav­el based on the prin­ci­ples of val­ue for mon­ey and cost ef­fi­cien­cy, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, Sen­a­tor Dar­ryl Al­la­har.

Al­la­har made the com­ment in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day as he re­spond­ed to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne about For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers' de­ci­sion to at­tend the May 8–9 Cari­com Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR) meet­ing vir­tu­al­ly.

The meet­ing was held in St Kitts and Nevis.

Browne ques­tioned the qual­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s par­tic­i­pa­tion on key mat­ters giv­en the min­is­ter’s vir­tu­al at­ten­dance. How­ev­er, Al­la­har de­fend­ed Sobers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tion and said the Gov­ern­ment, through the min­istry, en­gaged in the meet­ing re­mote­ly.

“The de­ter­mi­na­tion to par­tic­i­pate vir­tu­al­ly in the meet­ing held in St Kitts and Nevis was prin­ci­pal­ly a mat­ter of cost ef­fi­cien­cy in recog­ni­tion of the im­me­di­ate need to em­brace fi­nan­cial pru­den­cy,” Al­la­har said.

He added, “This new ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to ap­proach the dis­charge of all of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment trav­el abroad based on the prin­ci­ple of val­ue for mon­ey and cost ef­fi­cien­cy. This de­ci­sion was al­so tak­en in cog­ni­sance of the dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture put in place by the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at to sup­port vir­tu­al and hy­brid par­tic­i­pa­tion which em­braces flex­i­bil­i­ty.”

He fur­ther point­ed out that T&T was not the on­ly del­e­ga­tion to at­tend vir­tu­al­ly, as Be­lize, Guyana, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines al­so ac­cept­ed St Kitts’ “kind fa­cil­i­ta­tion” of the hy­brid for­mat. He said T&T has used this ap­proach in sev­er­al pre­vi­ous meet­ings.

Al­la­har did not re­spond to Browne’s fol­low-up ques­tion on how many times T&T in­ter­vened dur­ing the meet­ing, stat­ing it was not part of the orig­i­nal ques­tion filed.

Browne, a for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter, then asked what views, if any, Sobers ex­pressed on T&T’s be­half re­gard­ing:

(i) the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s ap­pli­ca­tion for As­so­ciate Mem­ber­ship in Cari­com;

(ii) the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti; and

(iii) on­go­ing Cuban med­ical sup­port to T&T and the wider re­gion.

Al­la­har, re­spond­ing on Sobers’ be­half, said Browne—giv­en his pre­vi­ous port­fo­lio—would un­der­stand the dis­cre­tion re­quired, es­pe­cial­ly with mat­ters dis­cussed in cau­cus or re­treat.

“It should there­fore be un­der­stood that views on some is­sues that are par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive re­main with­in the con­fines of that meet­ing's set­ting,” Al­la­har said.

He added that the three is­sues re­main un­der ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion at the re­gion­al lev­el and said pub­licly sourced doc­u­men­ta­tion is avail­able on the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at’s web­site, which Browne was fa­mil­iar with.

Browne then asked whether Al­la­har was aware that T&T has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with­in COF­COR to par­tic­i­pate on the mat­ter of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s ap­pli­ca­tion. Al­la­har again main­tained that sen­si­tive mat­ters re­main with­in the meet­ing’s con­fines and are still un­der con­sid­er­a­tion re­gion­al­ly.

When Browne claimed that T&T did not in­ter­vene in any form on the three is­sues, Al­la­har re­spond­ed, “Yet again it is rea­son­able to ex­pect that Sen­a­tor Browne would ap­pre­ci­ate the need for dis­cre­tion that is re­quired es­pe­cial­ly with mat­ters dis­cussed in cau­cus or at a re­treat.”

Browne coun­tered that the COF­COR meet­ing did not oc­cur in cau­cus and was not a re­treat.

In re­ply, Al­la­har said, “Re­gard­less of the la­bel put on the meet­ing, those is­sues are par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive and re­main with­in the con­fines of the meet­ing how­ev­er we de­scribe them.”