-Sir Shridath Ramphal
THE Caribbean Community is not on the verge of collapsing but in trouble, is how Guyanese-born former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Sir Shridath Ramphal views the decision-making regional body. He further opined that it is the lack of political will to implement decisions taken by Heads of Government that is the main problem that’s dogging the integration process, thereby causing it to falter on occasion.

“If the political leaders want it to work, mechanisms are not difficult to devise to make it work. With all the mechanisms you devise in the world, if you don’t have the will to make it work, it won’t. So what I see coming together here in a kind of desperate way is: Do we really believe in the integration movement? And I think the answers coming out of the leadership is, yes! We do!” he told foreign, regional and local media operatives who sought a comment from him Friday, as regional leaders were meeting during the 30th Heads of Government Conference at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.

And while he noted that there is general agreement among the regional leaders, he said that at the end of the day, it is action that will save and make CARICOM work; that it is the leaders themselves who need to ‘step up to the plate’ and ensure that the decisions taken on the various initiatives are implemented.

A case in point, he said, is that while leaders have over the years been making the right decisions in relation to the integration process, many of those decision still remain in draft with no action being taken.

Sir Shridath’s comments echo those made by former Jamaican Prime Minister, Mr PJ Patterson, who speaking at the official opening of the conference, charged the regional leaders to “make CARICOM matter to the worker, the teacher, the student, the businessman, the consumer, the artiste, the farmer, [and] the indigenous people.”

According to him, after 36 years, CARICOM is still a growing plant that needs to be nurtured, and that unless it is tended, it will wither and eventually die.

So saying, he asked: “Who is prepared to care for CARICOM? Who dares to stand up and be counted so that our Caribbean space can provide both food and shelter for us all?”