00:00As the situation regarding the February 2026 CARICOM heads retreat continues to spiral,
00:06Director of Caribbean Development Research Services Peter Wickham doesn't believe that the outcome would be favorable for Prime Minister Kamala
00:13Passat-Bissessa.
00:14Passat-Bissessa is at this time the only CARICOM head standing against the reappointment of Dr. Carla Bannett as General
00:22Secretary and has faulted the procedure for doing so.
00:26My thing is that I think Prime Minister Passat-Bissessa is missing the fundamental point.
00:31She was invited to have a government conference. Had she attended in person, then all of this would have been
00:36moved.
00:36And the conversation would have been about the reappointment. She would have been there.
00:40She would have been given the opportunity to put her two cents worth in.
00:44And if she disagreed, fine. But ultimately, I suspect that the goodly lady would still have been appointed.
00:50That's based on the provisions in the Treaty of Chagaramus where the majority commands such decisions.
00:56Wickham believes the communication issued by CARICOM Chairman Dr. Terence Drew is meant to defend CARICOM, but he sees it
01:03as unwarranted.
01:04Right now, I think that this is becoming an exercise in futility and I appreciate what Prime Minister Drew is
01:10doing.
01:10But I really don't know that we need to give considerably greater thought to Prime Minister Passat-Bissessa's concerns.
01:19The political consultant notes that before her recent attendance, she failed on numerous occasions to meet with her regional counterparts
01:27at the level of CARICOM.
01:29There's a fundamental challenge that she has, which is that she is uncomfortable being part of CARICOM.
01:34And I think that the time will come very soon, if it has not come already, when Prime Minister Passat
01:39-Bissessa will either put up or shut up.
01:41Wickham questions what was the agent in TNT that Passat-Bissessa would have had to leave ahead of time,
01:47as he mentions that other heads would have also missed Cabinet meetings in their various countries, either at that time
01:53or another, for reasons including travel abroad.
01:57Meanwhile, he cites the UK's pullout of the European Union for concerns it had on how it was being treated
02:02in the EU.
02:03And he doesn't see what is transpiring between TNT and CARICOM as being vastly different.
02:10My point is that if Prime Minister Passat-Bissessa is so convinced that Trinidad and Tobago is not doing well
02:16with these unreliable partners,
02:18then she needs to essentially set a plan and say, look, this is my timeline for departure, put it to
02:24the people of Trinidad if she wants or not,
02:26and then go her way, because she knows as well as we do, that notwithstanding all of the talk,
02:33that there are several manufacturers in Trinidad and Tobago that will suffer if they decide to leave CARICOM.
02:40TNT is a founding father of CARICOM, and the Prime Minister has indicated that she has no plans to pull
02:45this country out of the regional grouping.
02:48Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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