KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (CMC) — St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves Tuesday said he is hoping that by the next meeting of CARICOM leaders a decision will be taken on the issue of contingency liability within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) initiative.
Barbados will be the venue for the regional leaders meeting in February next year and Gonsalves, speaking in Parliament, recalled that he had observed that “it is ironic that a country, one of the larger ones, which is likely to benefit most from the freedom of movement of labour, was the one which was most concerned with restricting the extent of contingent liabilities.
“In other words, … their persons were likely to move out of their country and one would normally expect that they will have a greater interest in having the contingency liabilities enlarged, but that was not the case, even though reasonably, fewer persons would be entering their own country for the purpose of work so on…”
Gonsalves said there are other concerns being taken into consideration by other countries, adding, “I want to make the matter for contingency liabilities as wide and purposeful as possible and we may get there and I am hoping by the next meeting of the heads of government we can have a document which can be finalised which we can approve”.
But Gonsalves said it is important from the position of St. Vincent and the Grenadines “that we must see a sufficiency of balancing … so that we are not unequally yoked that we can be disadvantaged”
The CSME allows for the free movement of goods, skills, labour and services across the region and the contingent rights are those rights, which are associated with CARICOM skilled nationals as they and their dependents travel hassle-free throughout the region. These rights relate to their non-discriminatory access to the social services of the host territory.
The treaty allows for where contingency rights are terminated due to a change in the status of a principal beneficiary, his or her spouse or dependents, the host country shall employ its best endeavours to mitigate the negative impact arising from such termination and to effect a smooth transition to the new status.
Gonsalves, in his wide-ranging discussion regarding CARICOM, said that on the issue of connectivity, which has become a humbug for the regional leaders, he has raised this matter “so repeatedly.
“I said CARICOM is 50 years old, let us do the study to lease a couple of ships to help to transport our goods,” he said, recalling how the Canadian government’s donation of the Federal Maple and the Federal Palm in the early 1960s resulted in goods and passengers moving freely among the region.
He said the emphasis which is being put on now is on the fast ferries “and it is easy to talk about but it is a difficult proposition.
“I see something has come forward now that one of the ships going between Trinidad and Tobago will be repurposed to do something between Guyana and Trinidad and Barbados and perhaps extend further.
“But there are challenges even with that and many private sector proposals have come forward, but they are just proposals and even when we give it all our support, every bit of support these proposals get nowhere”.
Gonsalves told legislators that he is satisfied that there is a need to do something on the “goods front even as we continue with ideas about the ferry”.
He said he had raised the same issue within The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), noting that “we are not going to be able to move goods between St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Cuba and Nicaragua or Venezuela without ships…and to benefit from any other complementarity that may exist”.
Gonsalves said last Friday he was informed by the Director of Civil Aviation that all the requisite permissions have been granted for the Antigua-based LIAT 2020, the Sint. Marteen-based WINAIR and the Haitian airline, Sunrise “to do flights in and out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
“I am not going to talk about their particular routes. I am always very careful in not doing that because the individual companies would wish to advertise their schedules in whichever manner they would like,” he told legislators.
“But that is a very important development in Caribbean connectivity,” Gonsalves said.
When will SVG politics be based on how much a politician can do for making the economy better, create new jobs, clean up the deficit, do better for education. fix the infrastructure, bettering people’s lives and not only partisan politics while the country goes into heavy debt but the politician get wealthier.