Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says Trinidad and Tobago will not recognize Dr. Carla Barnett as Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) after her current term ends in August, despite regional leaders maintaining that she has already been reappointed for another five years.
“Trinidad and Tobago only recognises Barnett as SG until the end of her term this August 2026. All CARICOM leaders could do as they please, but Trinidad and Tobago will not recognise her as SG for a next term. That’s not going to change,” Persad-Bissessar told the Trinidad Express newspaper.
“We have already made that clear. We do not recognise her after August 2026. This is our final position,” she added.
Last week, Roosevelt Skerrit said Barnett, a Belizean economist who became CARICOM’s eighth Secretary General in 2021, had been properly reappointed and that Dominica supported the decision.
“The issue of the Secretary-General, this has been, I’m not sure why you asked me the question, but this thing has been ventilated in the public domain. I mean, every plate and spoon in the kitchen has been exposed on this matter,” Skerrit said during a news conference last Wednesday.
According to the Trinidad Guardian, CARICOM leaders held a five-hour discussion over the weekend regarding Trinidad and Tobago’s objections to Barnett’s reappointment and agreed not to revisit the February decision approving her second term.
The dispute centers on the process used to reappoint Barnett during the CARICOM summit held in Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, in February. CARICOM Chairman and St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew later announced that Barnett had secured the “required majority” support from regional leaders.
However, Persad-Bissessar, who was not present when the vote took place, has repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the process.
She has also accused Barnett of authoring a CARICOM statement issued by Drew defending her own reappointment and claimed that Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Sean Sobers, had been “disinvited” from a regional retreat via WhatsApp.
“No, they are still hiding from providing responses. It’s really shameful that the entire group knows that Barnett did disinvite Minister Sobers via WhatsApp, but they still persist in continuing with dishonesty,” Persad-Bissessar told the Trinidad Express.
“Everyone also knows that Barnett authored chairman Drew’s Caricom press release to clear herself and deliberately left out her WhatsApp message disinviting Minister Sobers that’s still on the COFCOR WhatsApp group, by the way,” she added.
Despite the dispute, Persad-Bissessar said Trinidad and Tobago remains committed to regional integration but would not remain silent on what she described as the “dysfunctional and chaotic state” of the 52-year-old organization.
She also dismissed suggestions that the matter should be taken before the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), noting that Trinidad and Tobago does not use the court as its final appellate court and would not move to adopt it in that role.
Persad-Bissessar further stated that her government would not be concerned if Trinidad and Tobago were removed from CARICOM.
“They are free to do as they wish. I’m not bothered. We have already made our position clear; they are free to expel us from CARICOM if they wish to do so. They are free to work with us if they wish to do so. Life goes on in Trinidad and Tobago, with or without CARICOM. The world stops for no one,” she said.
The prime minister added that her administration is seeking to strengthen trade ties beyond the Caribbean region, including with the Middle East, South America, India, and Africa.
