Post-‘summit’ assessment
ANYONE WHO took time to read the eight-page communique issued at the weekend on the just-concluded two-day Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community in Grenada cannot fail to credit the leaders for at least recognising the core problems hampering progress in the 38-year-old regional integration movement. But therein lies the rub–facing the reality but doing precious little to resolve long outstanding problems that now threaten the longevity of the CARICOM enterprise.
Problems, and little hope variously came from a mix of current Community chairman and host of the Grenada meeting, Prime Minister Tillman Thomas; immediate past chairman Bruce Golding, Prime Minister of Jamaica; newest Prime Minister of the grouping—Barbados’ Fruendel Stuart; and the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo.
The latter will soon be hosting a special two-day summit on “the way forward”.
Regrettably, credit-sharing would come to a halt with the realisation that having recognised, or diagnosed the ailment afflicting the integration movement, the CARICOM leaders had failed to bite the bullet in offering prescriptions for recovery.
Instead, having been planning for the Grenada meeting since they last met in Jamaica some eight months ago, they packed their bags for departure at the close of what was the 22nd inter-sessional meeting of the Community.

Special Guyana session
They now plan on holding an extraordinary meeting, over two days at the invitation of President Jagdeo, to focus specifically on the “hurdles” to be crossed in order to hasten “forward” with the CSME.
The cynics may be forgiven if they remark, in frustration, ‘deja-vu’. But those who still bravely share hope, against the odds, that it is not too late to rescue CARICOM from perceived threatened collapse, would really like to know what NEW initiatives these Community leaders may have to unveil at their forthcoming “special session” in Guyana?
Rather than looking for scapegoats in the media, labour movement, external factors/forces or else, they should be humble enough to blame themselves for having collectively failed to demonstrate that political will so necessary to do what they should, at the NATIONAL level in order to stimulate progress REGIONALLY.
The core of today’s challenge is what was identified so lucidly some I9 years ago in the seminal West Indian Commission Report–the need for effective governance, something they can learn from private sector management.
That Commission was the result of the visionary ‘Grand Anse Declaration’ that resulted from the I989 CARICOM Summit in Grenada. It laid the groundwork for the crafting of what today exists as the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that provides the legal basis for the CSME.
It is, therefore, all the more painful to have learnt that, after all the problems identified and lamentations that occurred when they met last week at the venue of the historic ‘Grand Anse Declaration’ 22 years ago, the CARICOM leaders apparently had nothing NEW to unfold from among working documents.
Worse, at this particular period when some of the unprecedented international political and economic problems should reinforce the reality that we need Caricom now more than ever for collective regional survival and identity.

Lamentations in St.George’s
At the formal opening of the inter-sessional meeting in St George’s, acting Secretary-General Lolita Applewaithe was declaring with a straight face, that “the time has come for the Community to take stock of its  strategic direction, as there was an urgent need to redound to enhanced quality of life or its peoples…” 
What a discovery to share. Stock taking time in 20II with little hope to offer for a CSME that’s floundering for survival in the face of political myopia and low level commitment to regionalism?
Current chairman, Prime Minister Thomas, had a different spin to the earlier  “stock taking” call. He stressed that a “re-appraisal of our approach to the integration process was critical in the face of the ‘unacceptable’ progress’ in impelementation of decisions…We have to face up to the skepticism of the Community’s populace….”
His Jamaican counterpart, Golding, was to later point to an evident “implementation deficit” that continues to be a major challenge. In a moment for truth he too was to identify the “implementation deficit” as a direct “consequence of the governance challenge faced by the Community…”
Good talk, Mr. Golding. When did the Prime Minister make the discovery on how lack of effective governance continues to plague progress in CARICOM?
After all, well meaning as he may be, the Jamaican leader himself had also failed to offer any practical support for an empowered management structure at the Secretariat to administer the affairs of the Community?

PM Stuart’s optimism
On the other hand, the Barbados Prime Minister, Stuart, who was last week chairing, for the first time, the CSME Prime Ministerial Sub-committee, sought to inject some optimism by speaking of a perceived “renewed commitment”.
While short on tangibles, he offered the following surprising comment to the media in St George’s:
“I am happy to report that there has been no falling off in enthusiasm for the regional project; that ALL (my emphasis) of the leaders and all of the delegations recommitted themselves to the regional vision to the realisation of the objectives of the CSME…”
Wow, really Mr. Stuart? How then such “enthusiasm” and “commitment” explain the serious “implementation deficit” that has brought the Community to such a troubled state of affairs, now requiring a “special session” in Guyana to come up with practical, realistic proposals for the “way forward’?
For the former chairman of The West Indian Commission and ex-Chancellor of the UWI, Sir Shridath Ramphal, who participated in the inter-sessional meeting as an adviser to the Guyanese President, while some progress had been achieved with the CSME, “it is now in a comatose state and needs to be awakened”.
President Jagdeo had himself spoken gloomily ahead of participating in the Inter-Sessional Meeting, contending, as he did, that the “regional enterprise is now in the doldrums.”
Well, as one of the long-serving leaders–soon to be gone–he has the opportunity to offer some creative initiatives to get CARICOM out of the “doldrums”  when he and his counterparts meet in Georgetown.
Hopefully, they would close the zip on rhetoric and reveal from their working documents at least basic guidelines for prioritised action, based on a checklist of deficits that must be corrected.
It would be good to learn who may now be ready to sign on to an effective form of governance and, further, whether the leaders recognise how essential it is to have a very competent, credible and committed CARICOM national to serve as a new Secretary-General before the coming annual Community Summit in St, Kitts.
Without a new governance system and the most suitable of nationals as new Secretary-General, the CARICOM leaders would simply end up doing what Trinidadians and Tobagonians love so teasingly to speak of as “spinning top in mud'”