Dominica willing to divest some national authority to OECS

By Kenton X.  Chance

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (CMC) –  Dominica’s Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, Tuesday said his government is willing to divest some of its national authority to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in an effort to fast-track integration within the sub-regional bloc.

Addressing the Seventh Meeting of the OECS Assembly here, Skerrit responded to complaints from opposition legislators during the debate on five bills as they questioned the relevance of the assembly as well as the extent to which opposition views are being taken into account.

The OECS leaders will meet here on Wednesday and the five bills, approved by the Assembly consisting of government and opposition members, call for the further advancement to the OECS authority, which would forward them to national parliaments for approval.

Skerritt said that the opposition MPs who spoke during the debate would be prepared to support similar divestments locally.

“And I think Prime Minister (Dr. Ralph) Gonsalves and myself, two prime ministers, would have been part of the of the discussions leading up to this position for us to achieve what we are proposing, and I agree with that, we have to be prepared to divest ourselves from a national standpoint of our constitutional authority to enact laws,” Skerrit said.

“If we do that, then we will have a parliament that has authority to debate and to pass legislation,”  he said, noting “as it is now, we have had to use the experience and the good will of the former minister and member of parliament of St. Vincent and Grenadines, Honourable (Rene) Baptiste to hold on as a figurehead speaker who is being given some gas money or top up on a phone or maybe EC$1,000.

Skerrit said that while the documents will get to the leaders late, because the St. Lucia-based OECS Commission would have to carry out the necessary examinations, “what we’re proposing, we have to be prepared.

“…and so that once we delegate that or divest ourselves of that authority, then we have the opportunity for us to have more, better structures in place and informing and so forth.”

The Dominican leader said he was aware that for some of the OECS member states, general elections will be held soon, but asaid, “would you be prepared to put that in your manifestos, to say that you are prepared to divest your constitutional authority to the OECS Assembly, to allow for you to pass legislation — because you would require an amendment to the Constitution — and amendments to the Constitution, whether it’s good or bad, never gets to the threshold by way of a referendum”.

He insisted that this would require the collaboration of all stakeholders “for us to achieve this”, adding, “I can say that without any shred of contradiction, even during the consultation, I was firmly in support of divesting some of our national quote, unquote, sovereignty to the center to allow this thing to happen.

“So we have to, if we’re going to be able to deal with those issues, we have to be prepared to move towards political union, or some of it. But the reality is, let’s be honest with ourselves, every one of us around this room, in the oceans, believe that we are prime ministers or premiers of a continent, individual continents, and that we want to hold tightly to that which we have inherited or managing before the crown or in our  case of state.”

Skerrit said that some leaders do not want to divest of these things and “so we have to be prepared to move to the root of political union, which should now usher in a divestment of some of our constitutional authorities”.

He said it was necessary to move past the debates “just for talking sake”, adding, “we have to act.

“When members of parliament meet, it is not a tea party we have, you know, we come here to discuss serious matters affecting the lives of our citizens, and at the end of the day, it is not taken.

“And so, for that to get to that point, we have to do what we have to … the prerequisites we … have to put in place.”

He said while the regional leaders had agreed on Antigua and Barbuda being the host country for the OECS Assembly, “it has no teeth, it has no constitutional biting.

“This is why we have to now pass it to the OECS Authority, with the hope that the OECS Authority will employ its members to take it to the national assemblies to pass.”

Skerrit said that the situation is similar to the wider CARICOM where decisions are taken and “we now have to go to the national level to implement them, to give the legal authority or the policy authority to those things, and sometimes they languish at the national level.

“And part of it has to do with our capacity, or limitations of our capacity. You have one person in the ministry dealing with 25 things…and things get lost in the system and so forth”.

Skerrit said it is necessary to relinquish “some of our national authorities to the centre, if we are to seriously achieve some of the objectives that we have spoken about” and to achieve this, it is important to provide the Assembly with the authority.

“Outside of that, as I said, outside of that, and we all agree that this is just getting together and we talk and we go and that’s it. So, I would suggest, colleagues, that we set a time when we can discuss this matter and decide whether we have gotten to the state of maturity to do that which we say we would like to do, or neither.”

He said that in Dominica, “there is no division.

“We are prepared to move on this. And in any case, we have more than two-thirds majority in the Parliament. And so, the Constitution allows for a period of 30 days to go in the public domain and come back and vote on this matter,” Skerrit told legislators, saying that St. Lucia will also be able to pass the legislation in its Parliament, given the government’s overwhelming majority.