IN THE first week of July, the Heads of government of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries will meet for their annual conference.
This year, the conference is being held against the background of a strenuous push over the past two years to take CARICOM to the next stage: the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and to establish the centrepiece Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the final court of appeal for the 15 CARICOM countries.
These efforts have not gone according to plan. Taking the CCJ first, only two of the 15 CARICOM countries, Barbados and Guyana, have entered into agreement for the CCJ to be their final court of appeal.
Of the others, some are uncertain and some simply have put the matter in file 13 for determination whenever.
In Jamaica, the legislation enacted for the CCJ to replace the United Kingdom Privy Council as Jamaica's final court of appeal was ruled unconstitutional by the Privy Council.
The CCJ is now virtually a shell, having little work to do although staffed by several highly-paid judges.
Aspecial fund of US$100 million was to be raised by the Caribbean Development Bank for the CARICOM group to be invested as an endowment to ensure the payment of salaries for the judges.
What is the total Jamaican financial liability in these circumstances?Full disclosure is needed to enable Jamaicans to be satisfied that the Jamaican treasury is not paying for services it cannot use.
Meanwhile, the CCJ can only operate on a severely truncated basis.
The CSME has similar problems. In this case, it has been functionally amputated.
It is now being referred to officially as the CSM, as the economic function has had to be abandoned since this depended on the establishment of a Caribbean Monetary Union with a single currency to be successful.
A single Caribbean currency replacing all currencies in CARICOM economies is not viable.
MONETARY UNION
Intra-regional trade represents 10 per cent or less for practically all CARICOM countries. It would make nonsense to introduce a new regional currency to replace all existing currencies to serve only 10 per cent of regional trade.
A regional currency would have to be administered by a Regional Monetary Authority (RMA) replacing the Central Banks of the region.
The RMA would have to follow the exchange rate regime predominating in most CARICOM countries, by operating on a fixed exchange rate, a position contrary to the strict policy of the Jamaican government which maintains a managed rate.
Economics Professor Havelock Brewster of the University of Guyana in a paper delivered in Washington on March 14, 2003, assessing the prospects of the single currency for the CSME, had this to say:
"In considering the issue of monetary union, COFAP (Council on Finance and Planning) recently accepted the recommendation of the Committee of Central Bank Governors that a monetary union involving all CARICOM member states is not achievable at this point in time, but should remain a long-term goal. For all practical purposes, a single currency market has been abandoned."
With the CSME now, like the CCJ, functionally amputated, the regional effort is focusing on the amputee, the CSM which, like all amputees, is hobbled.
So far six countries have become signatories to the operation of the CSM. The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) group, which are not merchandise exporters, now realise that their role in the CSM is to be importers, not exporters.
So what is the purpose of the CSM, they ask, remembering that this was launched as the principal development thrust to enhance exports by lifting the economies of the region to substantial developmental levels?
The frustration implied has led to a refusal among the OECS group to sign on to the CSM until the proposed Regional Develop-ment Fund (RDF) is in place which will provide developmental funding for the smaller countries with little or no hope of benefiting from the facilitation of exports to be promoted by the CSM.
The RDF is to receive contributions from the larger CARICOM countries and multilateral institutions.
So far, this largesse is far from fulfilled, although Trinidad has pledged US$10 million and Jamaica US$5 million.
The irony of this situation is that Jamaica has the 10th lowest GDP in the group which classifies it as a potential beneficiary, not contributor.
Yet the intention is to treat Jamaica as a contributor to the fund notwithstanding that Jamaican exports will scarcely benefit.
Indeed, from any assessment, only Trinidad and Barbados are likely to increase their export trade within the region, a factor now being recognised.
Next in line for deeper discussion, will be the impracticality of administrating a CSM without a political machinery to continuously make important decisions. This realisation has spurredwarnings by leading academics that without a political federation, the CSM would not be feasible.
The issue of a political federation still continues to haunt the discussions of its successor, CARICOM and its organs: it cannot be included as a possibility, and it cannot be excluded as a probability.
Confrontation on this issue is bound to come with deeper discussions as the implementation of the CSM progresses, as frequent decisions will be required at the highest political levels which cannot be avoided.
A proposed CARICOM Commission to run the CSM will not be an adequate substitute given the disparity of interests in the disparate grouping of countries requiring incessant high level decisions on matters of national self-interest.
The costs attached to a CARICOM Commission or federal structure, are not known, but one estimate cites a possible one per cent of GDP from states to run a federal government.
This would amount to J$5.39 billion in the case of Jamaica, posing both a testing financial and political challenge.
The political implications of a new federation would be the most serious of all the concerns, as it was in the case of the West Indies Federation nearly 50 years ago. It cannot be achieved in the Jamaican situation without a referendum.
Any attempt to impose a federal structure without consultation with the people by referendum would meet with unmitigated resistance.
There are also international political implications.
A configuration of eleven independent CARICOM countries, having 11 votes in international fora for vital decision-making at regional and global levels, is so strong a position politically that serious questions of the sanity of leaders would have to be raised if there was any attempt to give up that decisive political advantage in exchange for a single vote which would be the result of a merging of the 11 independent countries into a single federal nation.
NEW OUTLOOK
Those of us who were around from the early days will remember when regional and internationalorganisations failed to give recognition to the Caribbean.
The area was referred to as Latin America in the literature, which also was indicative of a general lack of interest in these Caribbean geographical specks on the map.
As new nations emerged, the region collectively began to carry substantial voting strength which had to be recognised and with this went greater respect for Caribbean states.
This new outlook led to a change of reference to the region as Latin America and the Caribbean, no longer Latin America alone.
The new-found political recognition on the international level will continue to ensure greater strength in multi-lateral dealings without which the countries of the region will be ignored as a source of influence in the geopolitical world.
Realism has to be the watch word now as it becomes harder to keep the dreams alive.
REPLACING DREAMS
The leadership which fostered the regional dream did not stop to identify those dreams which in reality would work, like the University of the West Indies and the Caribbean Development Bank, and those which, lacking reality, like the CCJ and the CSM or CSME, have little foundation on which they can stand.
The time has come now for leaders, including Jamaica's new Prime Minister, to call for a reality check as to where to go with:
