THE first of two half-yearly annual meetings of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) gets underway in Suriname tomorrow with future governance of the regional economic integration movement and the 'politics' surrounding West Indies cricket high on the work agenda.
Jamaica's Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller was last evening winging her way to Suriname, determined that the two-day meeting take "a clear, principled stand on the democratic governance of regional cricket" and what this may involve for its future management by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), or some other entity.
SIMPSON MILLER… the WICB needs to be reminded that Caricom governments cannot be taken for granted when it comes to proper accountability of the management of West Indies cricket.
Prime Minister Simpson Miller recently became involved in a public controversy with the WICB over the exclusion of Jamaica from any of the scheduled matches for the upcoming Australia tour. She is also at loggerheads with the board over what she has described as its "pitiful failure" to resolve the more than year-old suspension of Jamaican cricketer Chris Gayle from playing for the West Indies.
"I am aware of the national and regional support my Government has over objection to both the exclusion of Jamaica from the coming Australia tour of the region, as well as the deep disappointment over the persisting failure by the WICB to resolve the old dispute with Chris Gayle that prevents him from involvement with West Indies cricket," she said in a telephone interview from Kingston yesterday.
"Jamaica," she declared, "wants this matter resolved, and soon, and also strongly believes that the WICB needs to be reminded that Caricom governments, having been involved in general expenditures amounting to some US$100 million for Cricket World Cup in 2007, they cannot, and should not, be taken for granted by the directors of the board when it comes to proper accountability of the management of West Indies cricket."
In this context, she said that when the recent cricket controversies that erupted are discussed at the two-day meeting of Heads of Government, starting tomorrow morning (under the chairmanship of President Desi Bouterse), she expects that "relevant references" would be made to the far-reaching report presented in 2007 by the Governance Committee on West Indies Cricket, that was headed by her colleague, former Prime Minister PJ Patterson.
WICB's Hunte
Significantly, a meeting that was expected to take place last week in Kingston between Prime Minister Simpson Miller and WICB President Julian Hunte did not occur. Hunte had announced his decision to travel to Jamaica to offer "an apology" for the board's published statement that was quite critical of her rebuke over the exclusion of her country from the Australia tour. But he did not show up, and Simpson Miller said yesterday she had no idea why.
The Jamaican prime minister, whose People's National Party returned to Government at the December 29, 2011 General Election with a landslide 42-21 parliamentary majority, said that she was also "mindful about current challenges facing the future of Caricom and "would like for us, as leaders, to collectively speak and act more in response to these challenges instead of being stuck on talk about placing the CSME (the single market and economy) on pause or such similar notions..."
Wider challenges
In a statement yesterday on the current 23rd Inter-Sessional Meeting in Paramaribo, the Caricom Secretariat referred to what it described as "the thorny issue of the governance of cricket at the national, regional and international levels" as an agenda item. But it made no specific mention of either of the two issues of conflict between the WICB and Prime Minister Simpson Miller.
However, on the wider and quite urgent problem of establishing a new architecture for effective management at the Georgetown-based Community Secretariat, it was confirmed that the report by the Landell Mills review team on 'Turning Around Caricom', consistent with the pursuit of "an overall strategic direction" of the 15-member Community, will be "among priorities" for discussion.
To facilitate expected firm decisions during the Heads' two-day deliberations, the Secretariat and host Government have arranged for a meeting today of the Community Council, which is the second most important organ of Caricom after the Heads of Government Conference.
The Council's report on the outcome of its deliberations on the Landell Mill's review team report will be made available to the Heads of Government ahead of their first working session tomorrow.
For the formal opening session, one of the special guests would be the president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, who currently chairs the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. President Pinera is expected to brief the Caricom leaders on the next summit of the European Union and Latin American countries which Chile will host in 2013.
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