At the Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government, which commemorated the golden jubilee anniversary of CARICOM, a momentous decision was made. This was announced by CARICOM Chair, Roosevelt Skerrit, PM of Dominica: “We have taken the decision to seek to have the free movement of all categories of people to live and work. Obviously, there are some legal issues that we have to examine, and we have given the legal people some months to examine those legal issues and to ensure that they could come to us by the 30th of March to take a definitive position on this. We understand that there are some challenges for some, but we are committed to this.”
This is indeed a momentous decision and for sure there will be “some challenges for some” that must be addressed before the proposed implementation date of 30th March, 2024 – less than nine months away. With the breakup of the WI Federation in 1962 because of the withdrawal of Jamaica – “One from ten leaves zero,” in the words of TT’s PM Eric Williams – the integration of the ex-British colonies was rebooted as a free trade zone, CARIFTA in 1968. By 1973 this was deepened into the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and finally the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was launched in 1989. Dutch speaking Suriname was admitted into Caricom in 1995 and French speaking Haiti in 2002.
Progress in actual integration of the CSME was desultory at best and in fact was placed “on pause” in 2011 at a meeting in Guyana. On the free movement of Caricom citizens, the CSME merely agreed on a number of categories of skilled nationals which was policed very rigorously. There were periodic eruptions of disagreement when Caricom citizens were prevented from exercising that right. The present proposal to now expand the right to all Caricom citizens – with the exception of Haiti which demurred because of its present turmoil – is, as such, quite revolutionary, especially since it came out of the blue.
In addition to modalities for hassle-free inter-Caricom movement, it was noted there are several contingent rights that will have to be accorded such as access to primary and emergency health care, and education. Barbados PM Mia Mottley, who holds responsibility for the CSME in the CARICOM Quasi Cabinet assured the meeting: “this is what ordinary people want… in a Region that is under-populated”. This assurance will be a surprise to many in light of the lack of consultations within any of the fifteen Caricom member states and up to a mere three years ago, the “Guyanese Bench” at Grantley Adams Airport suggested otherwise. As for being “underpopulated”, only Guyana and Suriname qualify for this tag. In the meantime we were informed that the legal and regulatory are being drafted.
Reaction was swift and came from Reginald Dumas, who is regarded as one of the premier intellects of CARICOM. He had served as diplomat in the T&T Foreign Service, as Ambassador representing T&T in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and North America, as Permanent Representative to the OAS and as Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. In 2004 he was appointed by the UN as Special Advisor on Haiti. The eminent Caricom citizen was his usual forthright self on the radical proposal and went to the nub of the “challenges”: “I think that’s something that might be desirable, but in practice might be a little awkward in the sense that the economic situation in the region is not very good, and if people see others arriving from ¬ other countries to take jobs at a lower rate (salary), then there could be awkwardness.”
As mentioned above, arrangements for the free movement within the Community will be ready by end March, 2024. And further, the Caricom Secretariat is to prepare a timeline of actions necessary to complete policy and regulatory work to bring the regional capital market into being by July 2024. We suggest there be a national consultation on this proposal.
