Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne is dis­miss­ing as “woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate and pa­thet­ic” For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers’ ex­pla­na­tion about “ap­pro­pri­ate” T&T rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the Africa-Cari­com Sum­mit in Ethiopia last week­end.

Trinidad and To­ba­go was rep­re­sent­ed by the min­istry’s act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and the di­rec­tor of the Cari­com Af­fairs Di­vi­sion. Cari­com lead­ers at­tend­ing the sum­mit in­clud­ed those from Bar­ba­dos, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Grena­da, and the Ba­hamas.

Sobers did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s queries last week on what is­sues this coun­try’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the sum­mit would speak on and if they were meet­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al bank­ing heads and oth­er sum­mit at­ten­dees to net­work on T&T’s be­half.

Yes­ter­day, there was no im­me­di­ate re­sponse from the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry to ques­tions about the act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary’s ad­dress at the sum­mit.

How­ev­er, in a state­ment, the for­mer min­is­ter gave his take on the sit­u­a­tion.
Browne said, “Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has made the most ab­surd claim that Trinidad and To­ba­go is be­ing ‘ap­pro­pri­ate­ly’ rep­re­sent­ed at the Africa-Cari­com Sum­mit. He’s told the na­tion and re­gion this, but noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth.
“In re­al­i­ty, a sum­mit such as this must be at­tend­ed by the Head of Gov­ern­ment or the high­est lev­el of al­ter­na­tive, for ex­am­ple, the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, and our na­tion would have been rep­re­sent­ed by our Prime Min­is­ter or For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter, or at a min­i­mum, by an­oth­er Cab­i­net Min­is­ter.

“In­stead, with no ra­tio­nale or ex­pla­na­tion, this Gov­ern­ment made the cav­a­lier de­ci­sion to send an act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and a di­vi­sion­al di­rec­tor from with­in the min­istry to rep­re­sent our na­tion at this sum­mit. That’s a slap in the face and an in­sult to Cari­com and to the African Union. This sum­mit was the first in-per­son op­por­tu­ni­ty for lead­ers from this re­gion and Africa to come to­geth­er, dis­cuss, and chart a course for the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of these two re­gions, which is crit­i­cal for the fu­ture.”

He added, “To make mat­ters worse, Min­is­ter Sobers then drew a mind-bog­gling com­par­i­son with the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Guyana and Ja­maica at the sum­mit, when every­one knows that nei­ther of those na­tions, which just held gen­er­al elec­tions, hadn’t even sworn in their new Cab­i­nets when the sum­mit was be­ing con­vened. And if they were now emerg­ing from their elec­tions, T&T’s elec­tion was months ago. Sobers’ com­par­i­son, there­fore, is woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate and rather pa­thet­ic.”

Browne said that dis­cus­sions were be­ing held at the po­lit­i­cal and head of gov­ern­ment lev­el that would shape the fu­ture of “this im­por­tant link­age across the At­lantic, and send­ing pub­lic ser­vants at a low­er lev­el en­sures that you have lit­tle to no voice in the process.”

Browne said the sit­u­a­tion was “rem­i­nis­cent of one of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ju­nior min­is­ters who just a few months ago was shout­ing, ‘Nige­ria?? No­body wants to go to Nige­ria, not even Nige­ri­ans!’

“But Gov­ern­ment didn’t send the prime min­is­ter, or the for­eign and Cari­com af­fairs min­is­ter, or an­oth­er mem­ber of the largest Cab­i­net in our na­tion’s his­to­ry. Not even a min­is­ter of state. They elect­ed to send a very low-lev­el team, mi­nus any ex­pla­na­tion for the ab­sence of the prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion of our na­tion,” he added.