PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) on Thursday called for the resignation of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Minister Sean Sobers, saying that he has been misleading the country regarding the reappointment of Dr. Carla Barnett as the Secretary General of the 15-member regional integration grouping, CARICOM.
Both Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Sobers claim that Trinidad and Tobago was not invited to the CARICOM leaders’ retreat held in St. Kitts and Nevis in February, where the issue was discussed.
Late last month, in a brief statement, 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 reappointment at the CARICOM summit held in Basseterre.
“Well… this Prime Minister, this Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, does not have a leg, a foot, a toe to stand on in this matter. They are embarrassing Trinidad and Tobago,” former foreign affairs and Caricom minister Dr. Amery Browne told a PNM news conference. Watch video
He said that the United National Congress (UNC) led coalition is “squandering” its mandate and “under these circumstances the Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Sean Sobers, cannot continue in office having misled the regional community and the people of Trinidad and Tobago so comprehensively on such an important and fundamental matter.
Trinidad and Tobago is calling for a CARICOM meeting to address the reappointment of Barnett, insisting that it was “deliberately uninvited” to the meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis in February, where the agreement was reached.
Sobers said that Port of Spain would seek a meeting of CARICOM to challenge the reappointment, and that fresh elections could also be placed on the table.
Trinidad and Tobago has said that three letters sent to the relevant personnel regarding the issue have all been ignored, with Sobers saying, “No acknowledgment and no response is very, very troubling.”
Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar has already condemned the “surreptitious and odious process” used to reappoint Barnett, saying it could have long-term effects on the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
In a statement posted on her Facebook page earlier this week, Persad-Bissessar said she was again calling on the 15-member regional integration grouping “for transparency on the surreptitious and odious process used to reappoint” the Belizean-born economist for another five-year term.
“Trinidad and Tobago remains committed to CARICOM, but until this matter is transparently resolved, the organization and its secretariat should absolutely expect no quarter from my Government.”
But Brown said there has been a long series of correspondence between the Office of the Prime Minister and CARICOM since December last year concerning the meeting and caucus.
“Because at these heads, these caucus meetings, the tradition now is to offer a custom sheet. So how could you not be invited to something when your staff and your secretary have been providing your measurements and dimensions, and there’s a shirt somewhere in the Caribbean Community that has been made for Kamla Prasad-Bissessar to wear at the heads retreat,” said Browne, noting that all the leaders who attended the retreat in Nevis wore identical clothing.
“But everybody else had one on and …she (Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar) has one as well,) Browne told reporters that on the evening of February 26, the Trinidad and Tobago prime Minister left the summit, coinciding with the departure of US Secretary of State Marc Rubio, who had earlier met with the regional leaders.
He said, therefore, that she left the summit “before the most important part of any heads meeting, which is the caucus,” adding that the UNC administration seems to have adopted an anti-CARICOM agenda.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand today to accuse this UNC government, this Prime Minister, and this current Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs of executing an anti-CARICOM agenda, an agenda to dismantle and disempower the Caribbean Community.
“And yes, those are strong words, and that’s a strong accusation, but their track record speaks for itself,” Browne told reporters.
Barnett became the eighth CARICOM Secretary General on August 15, 2021, by “unanimous appointment” of the regional leaders.
Download video – Dr. Amery Browne
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