At the beginning of this month Caribbean officials traveled to Guyana for a consultation aimed at making the CARICOM Single Market and Economy more efficient and effective. The goal of the CSME is to integrate CARICOM member states into a single economic unit and make the region more powerful on the global stage. However, since the beginning of the implementation in 2006, the CARICOM Secretariat has been criticized for moving too slowly to achieve this goal. Today, the PM responded to this criticism and told us that he thinks things are moving along just fine.
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"I don't know that the performance has been particularly slow. Listen, all these integration movements take a long time to really put everything together. Look at the case of Europe. It's not a reason to become complacent but comparatively speaking I think CARICOM has done reasonably well so that when criticisms are made that are valid, we take them on board and we try to do better. But I don't think that we need to come down on ourselves too hard because I repeat, comparatively speaking we have done well enough."
Former Jamaica Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, recently addressed the matter as a member of a high level panel that discussed the CSME during a stakeholder consultation in Georgetown, Guyana last week.
He said, quote, "We continue to be deceptive to each other and to the people of the community if we conceal doubts and fears of honouring our commitments while we speak so passionately about the CSME."
Email
Print