The CARICOM Single Market is working but varying levels of commitment and emphasis on specific initiatives “bedevil implementation in a consistent and timely manner,” Prime Minister of Barbados David Thompson said on Friday.

Prime Minister Thompson was delivering the feature address at the opening of the two-day convocation on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference Centre, Bridge-town, Barbados, said a news release from the CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen.

Thompson told stakeholders that capacity constraint and not disinterest was responsible for the examples of irregular application of provisions of the Community’s flagship programme.

Heads of Government at the convocation included Baldwin Spencer, Prime Minister of Antigua and Bar-buda, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

Thompson acknowledged that the integration of the twelve-member states involved in the CSME presented tensions that must not be ignored.

According to the release, he referred to the “vigorous responses” region-wide to the question of the free movement of persons, but warned that the Community had to be careful not to allow the excitement associated with a declaration of free movement of people to eclipse the matter of balanced regional development.

Integrating a number of countries that are of different levels of development, and legislative systems, with varying cultures and languages and which are separated by water was a conceptual and practical challenge, but not “one beyond our reach or means,” he was quoted as saying.

Acknowledging that the region must adopt new and more meaningful consultative systems on the CSME so that there is the widest possible involvement, Thompson said that the private sector, labour, the wider civil society, members of the opposition and others should be “provided with a real avenue to contribute to the development of the CSME.” 

“And this convocation seeks to attain that goal by opening the discussion and reporting on progress so far,” he said.

His remarks followed those of President of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) Jacqueline Jack who expressed dissatisfaction that though it constituted a significant partner, labour was being “sidelined”.

“The accommodation of the interests of all the citizens of the Community as far as is practicable is critical,” the Barbados Prime Minister noted.