-‘Cool’ guy in a hot seat
THE FORMAL appointment of Irwin LaRocque as new Secretary-General of the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat is expected to be completed this week with a letter from current Community chairman, Dr. Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister of  St. Kitts and Nevis.
For almost six years, starting in September 2005, the Dominica-born economist has been functioning as one of three Assistant Secretaries-General of the 38-year-old Community, his specific responsibility being focused on Trade and Economic Integration.
At 56, LaRocque’s choice as SG has come as a surprise to officials of various regional organizations who prefer not to be quoted, as well as from among Community Secretariat staffers, the latter preferring to comment more on his ‘politeness’ and ‘respect for procedures’ within the administrative structure than on other factors.
He was chosen from a shortlist of five candidates, submitted by a ‘search committee’ that was established by Heads of Government last August following Edwin Carrington’s decision  to retire from the end of 2010 after 18 years as Secretary-General.
That development itself took place against the backdrop of what some have euphemistically termed a “very frank dialogue” in Jamaica involving Carrington and then CARICOM chairman, Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
So, after some  ten months of work by a ‘search committee’ whose terms of reference, including the required skills and expertise of a new Secretary-General, were never clearly outlined for public information, the five shortlisted candidates were interviewed by the CARICOM Bureau, and finally, by a process of telephone conversations, LaRocque was announced as the choice.
As some highly respected and experienced regional technocrats and thinkers see it, the CARICOM political directorate of 15 Heads of Government now find themselves having a new SG on board in the person of the ‘in-house’ appointee, LaRocque. But they are still far removed from dealing with the pivotal factor to which they themselves have often referred, namely, the urgent need for a ‘comprehensive review’ of the structure and functioning of the Secretariat.

‘Comprehensive’ change
Although they had at their disposal a range of mandated studies and reports from reputable West Indian thinkers on how to make governance of the Community relevant to current regional and international demands, the CARICOM leaders simply failed to pay heed to recommendations, and opted instead to appoint a United Kingdom-based consultancy firm of Landell Mills Ltd to provide them with a report on what should be done.
The three-member team  comprises  two foreigners — Richard Stoneman, Management Consultant; and Hugo Inniss, Financial Management Expert — with the retired Guyana-born jurist of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and former CARICOM official, Duke Pollard, as the third member.
Their terms of reference require development of a “set of recommendations that would, when implemented, secure the comprehensive restructuring of the CARICOM Secretariat and enhance its capacity to carry out its administrative, technical and other functions as prescribed by the Revised Treaty” of the Community.
The jargon is familiar — in usage for at least a dozen years — but it may, nevertheless, be revealing to learn who participated in shaping the terms of reference for this latest ‘review team’ on the future structure and functioning of the Community Secretariat, which continues to limp along, year after year, with policies neglected and programmes/projects deferred.
Both the new Secretary-General as well as the current Community chairman, Prime Minister Douglas, who has glowingly declared  LaRocque as possessing “the requisite skills of visionary leadership, courage and commitment to guide the Community at this time of change and uncertainty,” would be fully aware of the harsh realities that have been affecting effective governance of CARICOM’s affairs these many years.

General ‘ineffectiveness’
This ineffectiveness, which would be intolerable for any serious management structure in the private sector, is spread across the operations of CARICOM, and includes declining efficiency and required commitment to creative initiatives from the Community’s primary organ—the Heads of Government—to its Directorates (Foreign and Community Relations; Regional Trade and Economic Integration) and Human and Social Development.
When LaRocque formally assumes duty as new Secretary-General, his post will become vacant. That of Assistant Secretary-General for Human and Social Development has been vacant for some months now, and soon will also be the case of that of Assistant Secretary-General for Foreign and Community Relations.
In short, the CARICOM Secretariat is lurching from one set of management problems to another as its political directorate—Heads of Government—remain good on talk but doing poorly in the honouring of policies and programmes.
It was inevitable that someone had to be chosen to replace Edwin Carrington. LaRocque is that choice. But the major problem continues to stare us all: a Secretariat clearly adrift in a sea of management problems and a regional integration movement beset by political leadership in dire need of re-energising.
As a journalist of the Caribbean region, sharing the hopes of committed professional colleagues, it is left for me to also extend best wishes to LaRocque, whose ‘politeness’ and capacity to ‘be cool’ at times of tension and excitement  I also recognize. Time will tell how comfortably he occupies the SG’s ‘hot-seat’.