Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit is not disposed to speaking with the media at this time on Dominica’s accession to ALBA (the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas) and Caricom has been silent on Dominica’s membership.

A senior government official attached to the Office of the Prime Minister, who asked not to be identified, told Stabroek News last week that Skerrit has not granted individual interviews with the Dominican media on the issue and he was not prepared to speak about the issue with any reporter until he was ready.

ALBA, a trade and economic initiative of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, founded by Venezuela and Cuba in 2004, was meant as an alternative to the US-led Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA).

Stabroek News telephoned the Office of the Prime Minister several times in the past three weeks seeking an interview with the Prime Minister to no avail, even though this newspaper was asked on more than one occasion to leave a name and contact number. No calls were returned.

The Dominican government official maintained that Dominica was a sovereign state and was entitled to deal with its own foreign policy issues as it saw fit in the interest of the state.

Dominica is the only Caricom member state that has joined ALBA to date and has benefited from a number of social programmes with Venezuela. It is expected to benefit from trade and economic programmes as well.

Three weeks ago, Stabroek News also sought some answers from the Caricom Secretariat and the Chairman of Caricom as to how membership in ALBA for Dominica and other Caricom member states would impact on the regional integration movement.

Also given the fact that Caricom member states have a coordinated approach to foreign policy issues, in spite of their sovereignty, the question is whether Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda and St Vincent and the Grenadines had signed on to ALBA and whether Caricom was also informed by Dominica that it was going to join ALBA in January.

To date Stabroek News has had no formal response from the Caricom Secretariat or the Chairman of Caricom, Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.