Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

With less than three weeks to go be­fore the 50th Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not con­firmed whether she will at­tend.

Asked by Guardian Me­dia to con­firm her par­tic­i­pa­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “If the sched­ul­ing per­mits, I will at­tend.”

On Jan­u­ary 19, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers told Guardian Me­dia that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s del­e­ga­tion to the meet­ing was still be­ing fi­nalised and that an an­nounce­ment would be made in the near fu­ture. At­tempts yes­ter­day to ob­tain an up­date from Sobers were un­suc­cess­ful.

Since be­ing elect­ed in April, the Prime Min­is­ter has not at­tend­ed a Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing. She was ab­sent from the 49th meet­ing held in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, in Ju­ly 2025.

At the time, Sobers, who led the del­e­ga­tion, said the Prime Min­is­ter was at­tend­ing to mat­ters of “na­tion­al im­por­tance.” No fur­ther de­tails were pro­vid­ed.

De­spite her ab­sences, Per­sad-Bisses­sar reaf­firmed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s com­mit­ment to Cari­com dur­ing last Fri­day’s sit­ting of Par­lia­ment, which was at­tend­ed by Cari­com Chair and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew.

While pre­vi­ous­ly de­scrib­ing Cari­com as an un­re­li­able part­ner, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains one of the re­gion­al bloc’s largest con­trib­u­tors and con­tin­ues to in­vest in its col­lec­tive growth and de­vel­op­ment. She al­so ex­pressed sup­port for Drew’s New Year’s Day mes­sage, which em­pha­sised re­gion­al uni­ty, while main­tain­ing that re­form with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­mains nec­es­sary.

In De­cem­ber, Per­sad-Bisses­sar sharply crit­i­cised Cari­com, de­scrib­ing it as a “dys­func­tion­al and self-de­struc­tive” or­gan­i­sa­tion. She cit­ed poor man­age­ment, fac­tion­al di­vi­sions and what she termed “in­ap­pro­pri­ate med­dling in do­mes­tic pol­i­tics” as con­tribut­ing to its de­cline.

She al­so ac­cused Cari­com of ap­pear­ing to sup­port the for­mer Nico­las Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion in Venezuela, which she de­scribed as a “nar­co-gov­ern­ment.”

Mean­while, or­gan­is­ers of Caribbean En­er­gy Week, sched­uled to be held in Suri­name from March 30 to April 1, have ad­ver­tised Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a keynote speak­er.

Guardian Me­dia sought con­fir­ma­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter re­gard­ing her at­ten­dance at the event, but ques­tions went unan­swered.