Action on CSME! - PNP president says leaders must move from talk to implementation
Published:Sunday | October 28, 2018 | 12:00 AMRomario Scott/Gleaner Writer
President of the People's National Party (PNP), Dr Peter Phillips, has lamented the implementation deficit of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), noting that there has to be improvement if the region is to tackle issues such as climate change and transnational crime.
Phillips, who was addressing a session of the 80th annual conference of the Barbados Labour Party, asserted that countries in the Caribbean individually cannot manage the challenges of natural disasters or trans-national crimes.
Climate change has been on the tip of the tongue of many within the region, especially in recent times when different weather systems dumped inches of rainfall on Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, resulting in major flooding and landslide.
"We have to accept, if we are serious, that we are going to have what I called the implementation deficit within Caribbean. There are too many decisions which have been taken, which have been left to languish without implementation," Phillips said.
"We can't just be a place of chatting, we have to be a place of action as well," he added.
The PNP president, who mentioned that Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Motley will, in November, steer a committee to streamline how the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) model can be implemented, suggested that the possibility of sanctions for countries be explored.
"We need to examine, for example, whether sanctions should be applied to states who breach the implementation deadlines regarding the free movement of Caribbean people or failure to meet budgetary commitments that have been given," he said.
He urged the redoubling of efforts to implement the rules which govern the CSM, specifically mentioned rules of origin, and those relating to free zones.
"We need to tackle the whole question of the provision of services across our regional economic space, and we need to harmonise the laws regarding corporate tax, professional accreditation and other things," Phillips said.
Earlier this year, the Jamaican Government published a report from a task force led by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, which recommended that CARICOM complete the transformation to a single economy within five years.