Maraj urges Caricom to break silence on Barnett’s reappointment

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Am­bas­sador to Cari­com, Ralph Maraj, is urg­ing the re­gion­al body to re­spond to what he de­scribes as se­ri­ous pro­ce­dur­al con­cerns sur­round­ing the reap­point­ment of its Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, warn­ing that con­tin­ued si­lence risks un­der­min­ing con­fi­dence in the in­sti­tu­tion.

Maraj said there has been no re­sponse from Cari­com de­spite ob­jec­tions raised by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and a for­mal state­ment in Par­lia­ment by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers.

“Why is Cari­com silent af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter of T&T, Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, raised pro­found con­cerns over the pro­ce­dure em­ployed for the reap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty?” he ques­tioned.

He added that even af­ter mul­ti­ple in­ter­ven­tions from this coun­try’s lead­er­ship, “si­lence reigned,” not­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter has re­mained “firm in her com­mit­ment to get­ting an­swers.”

Maraj called on the re­gion­al bloc to ad­dress sev­er­al spe­cif­ic is­sues sur­round­ing the process, in­clud­ing whether prop­er pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed at the high­est de­ci­sion-mak­ing lev­el.

“Why was the pro­posed reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al not in­clud­ed on the pro­vi­sion­al agen­da for the Fifti­eth Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment in St Kitts and Nevis? Why was it not con­sid­ered dur­ing the ple­nary?” he asked.

“And why was it ad­dressed on­ly dur­ing a Heads of Gov­ern­ment re­treat when, in the ab­sence of three lead­ers, their au­tho­rised rep­re­sen­ta­tives were ex­clud­ed from the de­lib­er­a­tions?” Maraj added.

The am­bas­sador main­tained that T&T be­lieves the process did not com­ply with es­tab­lished rules, point­ing to the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.

Maraj warned that the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tion is at stake if the con­cerns go unan­swered.