Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dou­bled down on her crit­i­cism of the pro­ce­dure utilised by Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Heads of Gov­ern­ment to reap­point Dr Car­la Bar­nett to a sec­ond term as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al. 

In a so­cial me­dia post yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised Cari­com of­fi­cials for fail­ing to re­spond to of­fi­cial re­quests from her gov­ern­ment for in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to Bar­nett’s con­tro­ver­sial reap­point­ment dur­ing a meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis, at­tend­ed by her in late Feb­ru­ary. 

High­light­ing her con­cerns, Per­sad-Bisses­sar took um­brage at the elec­tion tak­ing place on a boat ride to Nevis, dur­ing a re­treat for the Cari­com lead­ers, which took place af­ter she had al­ready de­part­ed. 

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and the Ba­hamas were al­so re­port­ed­ly not al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate when the ma­jor­i­ty de­ci­sion was tak­en by the lead­ers present.

“This rais­es se­ri­ous con­cerns about the use of im­prop­er pro­ce­dures to cir­cum­vent the process and fa­cil­i­tate Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment,” she said. 

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sug­gest­ed that the is­sue was not triv­ial.  

“This is not a sim­ple run-of-the-mill ad­min­is­tra­tive ap­point­ment; it’s an ap­point­ment with long-term ram­i­fi­ca­tions for my cit­i­zens,” she said. “It’s an ap­point­ment that di­rect­ly af­fects the fu­ture over the com­ing five years of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s econ­o­my, se­cu­ri­ty, in­te­gra­tion and for­eign af­fairs.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so claimed that the ap­point­ment was un­law­ful as it was in breach of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, which es­tab­lished Cari­com. 

She not­ed that af­ter she high­light­ed the is­sue al­most two weeks ago, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers sent of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence to both Bar­nett and Cari­com chair and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion. 

“These let­ters re­quest­ed de­tails on when and how the mat­ter was placed on draft agen­das, what com­mu­ni­ca­tions were is­sued to mem­ber states, whether gov­ern­ments were in­formed of fol­low­ing the joint com­mu­niqué and clos­ing press con­fer­ence, and whether any draft de­ci­sion was cir­cu­lat­ed con­fi­den­tial­ly af­ter the re­treat,” she said. 

“They al­so sought an ex­pla­na­tion for any con­fi­den­tial­i­ty sur­round­ing the mat­ter, giv­en the im­por­tance of pre­serv­ing Mem­ber State con­fi­dence in Cari­com’s Rules of Pro­ce­dure and col­lec­tive de­ci­sion mak­ing,” she added. 

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who pre­vi­ous­ly tout­ed the idea of cut­ting Cari­com’s an­nu­al fund­ing from this coun­try, which rep­re­sents over one-fifth of the re­gion­al trad­ing bloc’s an­nu­al bud­get, said she would con­tin­ue to press the is­sue fur­ther un­til she re­ceives a sat­is­fac­to­ry re­sponse. 

“There­fore, in the in­ter­est of my cit­i­zens’ well­be­ing, I will mer­ci­less­ly, re­lent­less­ly, and if need­ed, ruth­less­ly pub­licly pros­e­cute this mat­ter un­til trans­paren­cy is achieved,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. 

Nei­ther Drew nor Bar­nett re­spond­ed to re­quests for com­ment when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day. 

When the mat­ter was first raised by the Prime Min­is­ter last month, she was crit­i­cised by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

“I com­plete­ly con­demn Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s most re­cent rep­re­hen­si­ble at­tack on the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, and her lazy, child­ish, and ir­re­spon­si­ble pos­tur­ing on the is­sue of the reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al,” Beck­les said. 

Bar­nett, an econ­o­mist from Be­lize, was unan­i­mous­ly ap­point­ed dur­ing a Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Con­fer­ence in Au­gust 2021. 

She pre­vi­ous­ly served as Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and Deputy Gov­er­nor of Be­lize’s Cen­tral Bank. 

Late last month, for­mer as­sis­tant Cari­com sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joseph Cox al­so raised is­sue with Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment.

“Can Dr Car­la Bar­nett ef­fec­tive­ly serve an­oth­er five-year term in the face of open ob­jec­tion, pro­ce­dur­al con­cerns and un­der­ly­ing di­ver­gence among mem­ber states, be­cause in Cari­com, and in­deed in small-state re­gion­al­ism more broad­ly, au­thor­i­ty is not im­posed,” Cox said.

“It is con­ferred through con­sen­sus, re­in­forced through process, and sus­tained through trust. Re­move those pil­lars, and the po­si­tion may re­main legal­ly in­tact. But op­er­a­tional­ly, it be­comes far more dif­fi­cult to hold,” Cox added.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad de­scribed the dis­pute as un­for­tu­nate but not un­ex­pect­ed.

She sug­gest­ed that it may not re­sult in pos­si­ble reper­cus­sions on trade.

“I don’t know if Cari­com is go­ing to take that route, be­cause the goods that we sell them are not goods they can eas­i­ly get else­where,” she said.

She al­so de­clined to spec­u­late over what ac­tion, if any, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her gov­ern­ment may take go­ing for­ward.

“I don’t know if there will be back­lash from Trinidad, be­cause their eco­nom­ic re­la­tions are mu­tu­al. It’s in­ter­de­pen­den­cy,” Ram­per­sad said.