If it appears that we have become a ‘stuck record’ on the issue of the region being provided with a reliable update on the status of the promised Regional Food Security Terminal then that is exactly what we are…a stuck record.
Truth be told, it is high time the people of the region put an end to the propensity of governments in the region for high-sounding but ultimately unfulfilled promises and then, much later on, behaving as though those promises had never been made at all. It is a practice that takes full advantage of the fact that we in the Caribbean do not have a reputation for giving vent to our feelings in ways that cause our governments to be mindful of the importance of treating us differently.
Far from being unique in our historical experience, elaborately paraded undertakings by our governments on issues that are critical to the well-being of the region are part of an embedded culture of indifference to what governments owe to the citizenry. In instances, like food security, for example, where the stakes are high, our governments have even more reason, both individually and collectively, to keep us in the loop, so to speak.
The idea of a Regional Food Security Termi-nal, it should be recalled arose out of regional challenges associated with the reality of many of the countries being confronted with a condition of food insecurity and with the challenge of having to roll back its worst excesses. This was the circumstance – at least so it seemed – that spawned the idea of a Regional Food Security Terminal, in the first place.
Here is an instance, one thinks, in which CARICOM’s member countries have failed, to put its intra-regional machinery to work, as diligently and strategically as it should, to serve as a reliable link between the people of the region as a whole and the status of the Food Security Terminal. This, we assume, is part of the reason for the existence of the CARICOM machinery, in the first place. Indeed, this is not the first instance in which it has been observed either here in Guyana or elsewhere in the region that our governments have been failing to put the available intra-regional machinery to work to keep our people ‘posted.’
At a time when, here in the Caribbean, there are so many challenges to be met and overcome, what, in effect, is a serious deficiency in the accountability of Caribbean governments to their people, is not something that we can ‘horse around’ about. There is simply too much at stake. Here, the issue becomes even more poignant when account is taken of the fact that there are so many issues that are critical to the well-being of the region (climate change and food security being high on that list) that need to be attended to earnestly and with an enhanced sense of urgency.
Here, while no one is saying that everything that needs fixing in the region will be fixed overnight, the inherently long-suffering people of the Caribbean have, at this stage, endured a more than generous measure of eye pass from their governments which have long embraced a when we’re good and ready attitude to keeping the people of the region abreast of issues that are critical to their well-being.
The situation becomes even more critical in circumstances where we have been, for several months, in possession of information to the effect that some of the smaller territories within the CARICOM family that possess weak or near non-existent agricultural sectors had been, even prior to talk about the creation of a Food Security Terminal, faced with varying levels of food insecurity and in some instances, malnutrition-related maladies.
On an issue as critical as food security there can be no question that the people of the Caribbean should, by now, have received more than one reliable progress report that specifically addresses the issue of its state of readiness to at least serve those member countries which we have long been told face conditions of food insecurity.
One can think of no good reason, why, up to this time, such a comprehensive report has not been forthcoming and why, moreover, we should not, with due haste, be afforded, immediately, a timeline for such an update. Anything less would be adding considerable insult to the already pre-existing unacceptable injury.
