Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­newed calls for trans­paren­cy from CARI­COM over the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Car­la Bar­nett, warn­ing that her Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to chal­lenge what it de­scribes as an im­prop­er process. She has al­so threat­ened to with­hold fund­ing from Trinidad and To­ba­go for the re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In a Face­book post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to CARI­COM but will not re­lent un­til what she termed a “sur­rep­ti­tious and odi­ous” process is ful­ly ex­plained. She ar­gued that the ap­point­ment car­ries im­pli­ca­tions for the coun­try’s econ­o­my, se­cu­ri­ty, re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, and for­eign af­fairs over the next five years.

The Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed that the Gov­ern­ment has for­mal­ly ob­ject­ed to the reap­point­ment, main­tain­ing that it was not con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with Ar­ti­cle 24 of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, which re­quires for­mal con­sid­er­a­tion by the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment.

She ref­er­enced cor­re­spon­dence sent on 25 March by Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Sean Sobers to CARI­COM Chair­man Ter­rance Drew, out­lin­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ob­jec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, the pro­posed reap­point­ment was not in­clud­ed on the pro­vi­sion­al agen­da of the Fifti­eth Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment, held in Saint Kitts and Nevis, and was not ad­dressed dur­ing ple­nary dis­cus­sions. She claimed the mat­ter was in­stead raised dur­ing a Heads of Gov­ern­ment re­treat, from which some Mem­ber States, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, were ex­clud­ed through their au­tho­rised rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that fur­ther let­ters were dis­patched on 31 March to both Drew and Bar­nett, seek­ing de­tails on how the mat­ter was in­tro­duced, what com­mu­ni­ca­tions were shared with Mem­ber States, and whether any de­ci­sions were cir­cu­lat­ed af­ter the re­treat.

Ad­di­tion­al cor­re­spon­dence from the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs to CARI­COM of­fi­cials al­so sought doc­u­men­ta­tion on the process, not­ing that pre­vi­ous reap­point­ments fol­lowed es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures and re­flect­ed the views of all Heads of Gov­ern­ment.

The Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed that no re­spons­es have been re­ceived to date. She added that Trinidad and To­ba­go, which con­tributes a sig­nif­i­cant share of CARI­COM’s bud­get, is en­ti­tled to ac­count­abil­i­ty and ad­her­ence to agreed rules gov­ern­ing re­gion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing.