Guyana President reiterates support for regional integration movement

President Irfaan Ali of Guyana Friday defended the 15-member regional integration grouping,  CARICOM, and reiterated his support for the reappointment of Dr.  Carla  Barnett as the grouping’s Secretary General for another five year term.

Ali, who arrived here to deliver the feature address at the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry & Commerce business meeting, told reporters that CARICOM founded on August 1, 1973, has an important role to play and “like any other movement, like any other family, there will be challenges, there will be opportunities.

“…over the last five years, we, CARICOM, has operated on the different challenges. We had COVID.We had the global supply chain crisis. We had a food crisis with rising costs. We saw it was not easy.

“We had a very tough season. But what I believe is necessary is a move towards the bridging, creating that bridge where the bureaucracy, that style needs to develop, but from within countries themselves, like trade, expands the economic opportunity.

“So people, CARICOM citizens, can feel the value of CARICOM when you travel. You can feel the value of CARICOM when you eat. You can feel the value of CARICOM when you seek attainment. So that is the space that we should be working for,”  Ali told reporters.

The regional leaders were meeting virtually on Friday to discuss several issues including the controversy surrounding the re-appointment of Barnett, a Belizean economist, whose five yeear terms comes to ane end in August.

Trinidad and Tobago had been calling for a meeting of CARICOM to deal with the re-appointment  insisting that it was “deliberately uninvited” to the meeting where the agreement had been reached in St. Kitts and Nevis in February.

The country’s CARICOM and Foreign  Affairs Minister, Sean Sobers earlier this  week that Port of Spain would be seeking a meeting of CARICOM to challenge the reappointment and that fresh elections could also be placed on the table.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has already condemned the “surreptitious and odious process” used regarding the reappointment of Barnett, saying it could have long term effects for the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

In a brief statement late last month, the CARICOM chairman and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister, Dr Terrance Drew, said that Barnett had attained the “required majority” from among regional leaders regarding her re-appointment at last month’s CARICOM summit held in Basseterre.

Ali, who had earlier this week defended the procedure used to re-appoint Barnett, reiterated his position here on Friday, telling reporters “we made a decision to support the re-election of Secretary-General, and that is something that we stand by”.

He said he would  not make pronouncements as to  what transpired during the meeting in Basseterre adding “I can just speak about my role.

“I was at the caucus when this was taken, and I am a supporter,”  he said.

Guyana and Venezuela have a long standing border dispute now  before the International Court of Justice (ICJ)  and Ali also spoke of  the visit on Thursday to  Grenada by the Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriquez,

“I’m open to meet any leader globally, any leader in this region.  As a responsible leader, we know that development of our countries, development of our people, they’re integrated.

“And we stand firmly on the side of democracy, the rule of law. We will take like any threat to the sovereignty of Guyana, and that is why I want to also thank Prime Minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar  for her very strong words and decisive position on Guyana, on our sovereignty, on our territorial integrity.

‘We value that deeply. We value our friendship with Trinidad and Tobago. We see Trinidad and Tobago as a brotherly, sisterly country, and part of that community,”  Ali said.

In his  address to the private sector grouping, President Ali called for  Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana to come together for at least 72 hours to fix the problems which currently stop the two countries from finalising a strong economic partnership, noting that it was important for the two countries, which are propelled by oil and gas.

“If we care about partnership, if we care about building consortiums. We care about building a joint economic front between Guyana  and Trinidad and Tobago then we must care about fixing the problem and let’s get in that room, lock ourselves up for 72 hours and fix the damn problem,” said Ali.

He told the meeting that there were prospects outside of energy where both countries could develop through partnership pointing to Guyana’s export of soya beans and Trinidad and Tobago’s famous cocoa plant.

While he praised the Trinidad-based regional conglomerate, ANSA McAL,  for leading the way through its investments in Georgetown, Ali  said he was equally disappointed that there was no Trinidad and Tobago consortium that had taken the opportunity to invest in Guyanese gold.

Ali also  highlighted the sectoral distribution of credit to the private sector, noting that in Trinidad and Tobago the banking sector placed minimal emphasis on the agriculture sector. He said in his country,  the banking sector supported activities across all critical sectors, including agriculture meaning that the private sector is actively partnering with the government to develop these sectors in the economy.

President Ali called for economic diversification, saying “we must not think of agriculture in the traditional sense but to understand it has great financial gain”

He said infrastructure is also important and there is a massive investment in roads, bridges and airports to position Guyana as a regional hub. (CMC)

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