PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo will be leading a Guyanese delegation to the CARICOM Intersessional Meeting, from February 25 to 26, in Grenada, where the issue of food security in a still precarious global economy is on the agenda.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon made the announcement at his post-Cabinet media briefing, at Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown, yesterday, when he outlined some of the critical issues to be discussed.
He said the intersessional is being held at a time when the Region’s economy is slowly recovering from the global financial crisis and is facing the consequences of it on its social, political and economic stability.
Luncheon said, high on the agenda, would be a focus on governance and the direction of the community, essentially, dealing with the area of integration.
“Food security is another matter that surfaced and the conditions currently and the impact on the Region, ICT, energy and the CARICOM/UNASUR synergies would be explored by President Jagdeo,” the HPS stated.
Luncheon said the Grenada forum would be the occasion for a review of the CARICOM budget and, from the Ministerial Segment, indications are that a reduced package would be put forward for 2011.
“Note should also be taken that the intersessional would see the presence of a number of new Heads of Government in the community,” he said.
Luncheon reminded that most of the CARICOM countries have been adversely affected by the still unresolved global financial crisis and that, more than anything else, has affected their revenue inflows.
It is on that account that CARICOM countries have all indicated their difficulties with keeping the same size budget and level of expenditure it would command. On that basis, Ministers’ technical teams examined these issues and are recommending a reduced budget to the Heads Segment of the meeting.
“It is another indication of the impact of the economic crisis on CARICOM States,” Luncheon maintained.
He said he envisages staff CARICOM staff cuts because of the financial constraints. “I would want to believe it is unavoidable. Definitely cuts in budget lead to abandonment in programmes and, with the loss of programmes, the staff who had been executing them would be out of work.”
Luncheon said Guyana is not one of the States that have fallen short of their commitments to the CARICOM budget. “The commitment for 2011 was already a matter of appropriation in the 2011 budget. So it is also unlikely that Guyana would move away from the track record of meeting its total obligations to the budget of CARICOM.”