THE new chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Prime Minister Dean Barrow of Belize has sought to inject a spirit of optimism in his New Year message to the governments and people of the region’s integration movement.

One of five newly-elected Prime Ministers of our 15-member Community, Mr. Barrow has been serving on the CARICOM Bureau (a management committee) following last July’s CARICOM Summit in Antigua and Barbuda at which  Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer’s turn came to be chairman for the standard six-month period.

Now he is preparing, as new chairman, to host the first CARICOM Inter-Sessional Meeting for 2009, scheduled to take place from March 12-13. His New Year message, therefore, has special significance, as he would be aware of what the Community failed to achieve since the Antigua Summit and the challenges that must be collectively and seriously faced at the coming Inter-Sessional in Belize.

Undoubtedly fully briefed by the Community’s Secretary General, Edwin Carrington, Chairman Barrow has identified, among the more urgent and compelling issues for action, the advancing of arrangements for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and to “bring closure to the long-running review of its governance structure.”

He has pledged to utilise his term as Lead Head of Government for Governance and Justice in CARICOM’s quasi-cabinet to “see the finalisation of the new apparatuses that would streamline decision-making and accelerate implementation…” He has had almost one year to acquaint himself with the problems and challenges since coming to power.

What is particularly significant about Mr. Barrow’s stated commitment as CARICOM’s new chairman, is the lack of specifics to enhance arrangements on both fronts –governance structure of the Community Secretariat as well as Justice.

Some may well think that he could at least have signalled his own desire for a collective approach to achieve a more relevant and empowered administrative structure to replace the modalities of functioning of the Secretariat in responding to the expanding and demanding needs of our Community at this very challenging period for the region. 

Secondly, it may have been more helpful had he seized the opportunity of his New Year’s message to encourage new thinking for the realisation of the widest possible access to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) by partner states which, of course, would have been a reminder to his own administration. 

In fairness, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, who Prime Minister Barrow has succeeded as CARICOM’s chairman for the next six months, had also failed to address both of these challenging issues — a new governance structure and widening access to the CCJ as the final appellate court for member states. To date, only Guyana and Barbados have the CCJ as their court of last resort.    

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Barrow’s stated anxiety to advance CARICOM’s work agenda is quite welcome, and we join in looking forward with optimism to a new mood for achieving major objectives too often frustrated from being attained.