Individual CARICOM nations have put measures in place to fight the rising cost of living in their respective countries, but say they are powerless over the cost of fossil fuels which drive all aspects of the economy.
That was one of the key points emerging from discussions held at the 51st Regular Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government which ended in Castries, St Lucia, yesterday.
However, Prime Minister of St Kitts & Nevis Dr Terrance Drew said while there was no energy crisis in the region, there was an energy-harnessing issue.
“On the issue of the cost of living, it seems like the Caribbean is just on this wave, up and down, up and down. There’s a war, we’re down, up, down; a hurricane, we’re up, down. We suffer these shocks mainly because a lot of what we consume, we import,” he said during a media conference at the close of the meeting.
“We have wind, we have solar, we have geothermal, and we have wave, and we have started to invest heavily in these. There’s nothing that can really stabilise our economy or transform our economy or deal with this constant up and down, like stabilising our energy sources and our energy situation.”
Petroleum products
Drew said that at a meeting of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, a chart showed billions were being spent on petroleum products.
“Cutting into that with renewable energy can really help from our perspective to transform the Caribbean, to transform the region and help us to get on a sustainable path of really managing the cost of living of all of our people here in the region. So that is one of our proposals that we are putting forward.”
He said St Kitts had also put to tender a plan to build a 50-megawatt facility and they would share via under-sea cable with other countries around, like Antigua and Barbuda, to help reduce the cost of energy.
Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said CARICOM was about to enter discussions with Trinidad and Tobago about the use of one of its ferries that can ply the Southern Caribbean as a “proof of concept” on how inter-island trade can lower the cost of living. Trinidad has long used ferries for trade and travel with its sister island Tobago.
Mutual recognition
“I’ve undertaken the responsibility of working with colleagues to be able to get the treaty arrangements for mutual recognition of licences, insurance, so that vehicles, cargo vehicles can literally go on and come off where possible. This is a work in progress,” Mottley said.
She added that said while it would be a first in the Southern and Eastern Caribbean, it would also reveal the infrastructural arrangements that needed to be put in place at the various ports.
“So I give you the assurance that we are singularly focused on being able to reduce the cost of intra-island cargo which, in addition to the other measures that we have taken to increase disposable income of our citizens, but also to reduce the cost of freight, the cost of gas and the cost of electricity, all of which, when combined, can be completely inflationary, is what we’re doing together.”
Mottley said the region was also looking at the application of the Common External Tariff. It was put in place to protect regional production, but remained on some items even as production ended over the decades. Some countries have asked for different arrangements so it can be removed, and thereby lower the cost of goods.
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar also outlined three key medical services available in her country which she said could be accessed at a fraction of the cost elsewhere. These include a National Prosthetic Centre – set up with assistance from the government of India.
She said prices in the United States ranged from US$3 000 to US$120 000, depending on “the mobility of what you want that artificial limb to do”.
Persad-Bissessar said the twinisland republic also had many medical graduates in various fields, adding they have shared with CARICOM members and are willing to work with them to provide fully trained doctors, mostly trained at the University of the West Indies.
The third service is a children’s hospital, which she said had affordable prices, and these ventures would also help them earn foreign exchange. (SAT)
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