Georgetown : The Finance Ministers of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana have both delivered very poignant charges to regional policy holders, developmental partners and academia representatives as it relates to the state of affairs in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and its relationship to the global environment.
Dr Ashni Singh and his Trinidadian counterpart Winston Dookeran was at the time addressing the Second ever meeting of the Caribbean Development Roundtable, being hosted at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC), in conjunction with the Guyana Government and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
Dr Singh implored on the stakeholders to not waste time seeking to redefine the challenges facing the region as these problems and well known and documented.
He also told the gathering that he is of the firm belief that the region needs to move away from making emotional arguments as it relates to the treatment of countries in the region when it comes to debt relief.
Dr Singh said that he is convinced that the international community will be unmoved by emotional arguments and as such the region should now be working towards formulating and articulating credible arguments to present its case.
“We must not just have another conversation on defining our problems and making another emotional argument….the international community will not be convinced.”
His Trinidadian counterpart Dookie said that the CARICOM model is one that has to be revised given the shortcomings which have now come to the fore.
Dookeran warned that it is imperative for the CARICOM nations to find a balance between Economic and Political logic and forge synchronization.
“It’s essential to align economic and political logic,” said Dookeran even as he expanded on his argument that the CARICOM model has to evolve.
