A Chat with Dr. Armstrong Alexis, CARICOM’s Deputy Secretary General

CARICOM: Its Strengths, Its Challenges and His Role

Chadia Mathurin:What is expected of someone in the role of Deputy Secretary General at CARICOM?

Dr. Armstrong Alexis: The structure is you have Secretary General, the Deputy and there are four Assistant Secretaries General. The Assistant Secretaries General, they all have thematic responsibilities that they pursue. My role is basically [I serve] as the second highest authority in the Secretariat. I deputize on behalf of the Secretary General and I also have responsibility for corporate affairs. So my role essentially is to deputize on behalf of the Secretary General whenever the Secretary General is required to take up a responsibility and may not be available for various reasons.

I also operate based on the delegated authority or the devolution of responsibility of the Secretary General. So the SG may say “Okay, I’m responsible for all those different things but I will assign a,b,c,d,e to my Deputy and my Deputy will lead on a,b,c,d,e”. One of the fundamental delegations that have been traditional at the Secretariat is that of managing the corporate offices of the Secretariat; managing all of the corporate offices, conference services, administration, finance, HR, information technology. The Deputy tends to manage all of those issues on behalf of the Secretary General which then releases the Secretary General to do the external relations, the policy and other responsibilities of the Secretariat. So that’s essentially what I do as DSG [Deputy Secretary General].

Chadia Mathurin:Thank you. So my next question. CARICOM has often been criticized on the basis that it is not fulfilling what it had set out to do or it has not done as much as possibility foretold. So in your role as Deputy Secretary General what are some of the gaps that you have been able to identify since your ascendance to the role at CARICOM.

Dr. Armstrong Alexis: So a couple of things, eh. I think one of the things that we need to make clear is that we have to sort of distinguish – and it’s not just conjecture, it’s real – we have to distinguish between CARICOM and the CARICOM Secretariat. The wider definition CARICOM would entail regional institutions, will entail the member states, will entail the Heads of Government and all the Councils of CARICOM. The narrower definition of the CARICOM Secretariat would be just that: the Secretariat which is based in Georgetown, which according to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas is responsible for the administration of the affairs of the community. Right? So I will narrow my response therefore to the CARICOM Secretariat.

I believe the CARICOM Secretariat, by its definition, in accordance with the Treaty, ¹The Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas is the administrative organ. So there may be a mismatch between what the public expects of the [CARICOM] Secretariat and what the Secretariat was designed to perform. The Secretariat is really and truly the administrative organ. Decisions made by Heads, for example, there is a responsibility of the Secretariat to support the implementation of those decisions, but the decisions are implemented at the member state level. If there is a decision – as there is – a decision on free movement as part of the CSME, as part of the Single Market and Economy, it is not the Secretariat’s responsibility to implement free movement. It is the member states – the 15 member states of CARICOM – that must ensure that the legislative framework in every member state is such that, by a particular time, people of the Caribbean –nationals of the community – can move freely. So the Secretariat’s roles and responsibilities in that regard must be put in context.

…there may be a mismatch between what the public expects of the [CARICOM] Secretariat and what the Secretariat was designed to perform.

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Here is where I think, based on my reflection of the past seven months, that I would suggest that there are probably some gaps. The first thing is because of a number of reasons, and that might include resources, the framework for ensuring that decisions that are made at the Heads of Government level are implementable requires a proper articulation of resources –technical, financial and human resources – because when decisions are made, those decisions have to be implemented obviously. But countries in the region – the 14 countries in the region – can either present fourteen (14) unique challenges or can present challenges in clusters; the OECS countries may have a particular set of challenges, the larger countries – Jamaica – because of a number of issues, including history can present one set of challenges, Barbados might present a different set of challenges. We have not focused, in my view, sufficiently on how we curate the challenges – how we assess those challenges to be able to put together a proper responsive framework – to say, “okay, three or four countries are experiencing the same challenge where a mandate is concerned [so] what is that challenge? What can we do to help those three or four countries overcome that challenge? How much would it cost us to help those countries overcome that challenge and therefore, how do we allocate the resources towards addressing that challenge?”. The systems we have currently are not as clear cut as I just presented, and I think that is something we need to reflect on to be a little more nimble, a little more deterministic, in the kinds of support that the Secretariat can provide the member states for implementation. So I think that’s one challenge that we have.

The second one for me, is as Secretariat, as anything else, it is a bureaucracy and as a regional bureaucracy we sometimes struggle a little bit with how we create a CARICOM Secretariat identity that relies on its member states and what is reflected in the respective member states but at the same time, that is different from how the public sector is expected to run. And there are [in fact] times when we need to be less public sector oriented and more results-driven. But then when we look for what is precedent to be able to guide the work of the Secretariat we usually look towards government systems – the public service – for that precedent and that does not always work in the best interest of the Secretariat. So I would say that is the second one.

The third one for me is really about, again, how sometimes bureaucracies for various reasons can develop a lot of subcultures and some of those subcultures may not necessarily be in the best interest of progress – in the best interest of a results oriented way of doing things – and therefore determined, strong, persevering management is required; fairness of course, but strong determined management to keep the Secretariat in a results-oriented framework to ensure that it achieves what it sets out to achieve.

Chadia Mathurin: You said something in the beginning of your response to that question that stood out to me. You said that you think that there is some sort of discrepancy – or variance – between the actual role of the Secretariat and what CARICOM citizens may expect from the Secretariat. And generally, these discrepancies come from a lack of education. So what do you think are some of the ways in which we can educate CARICOM citizens more effectively on the role of CARICOM, its branches and all of its elements and how they can work together and how we can actually get citizens participating more in terms of getting CARICOM to function as a realization of its conception.

Dr. Armstrong Alexis: I think the first thing is that what we do must resonate with people. There must be a certain level of interest in what we do and that interest can only come from people being able to see the direct link between what we do and how it affects their lives. It’s no different to, if you belong to a club in Laborie. If nobody is seeing the benefits of that club to them – to their community – why would they care? Mhmm? It’s no different to the CARICOM Secretariat. People have to be able to understand the relevance of what we do and therefore we have to present what we do in such a form that it is of relevance to people’s lives.

I have said before that I think one of our biggest challenges is that we [CARICOM] are simply not very good at telling people what we do. We’re not very good at telling our story.

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I have said before that I think one of our biggest challenges is that we are simply not very good at telling people what we do. We’re not very good at telling our story. Let me give you an example. As part of the Common External Tariff, right, there are guidelines. Goods that are produced in the region ought to be given priority in terms of accessing Caribbean markets. If a proprietor wants to bring in, let’s say frozen passion fruit nectar. I’m just choosing something out of the blue. Let us say for example, you are running a company in Vieux-Fort and you want to bring in frozen passion fruit nectar, do you know that before you do that you have to apply for exemptions on the common external tariff? That information is brought to the attention of the Secretariat, the Secretariat sends out a memo to all member states informing them that Company X has put in, through their Ministry of Trade, a request for the importation of frozen nectar and countries have seven days within which to respond as to whether or not they are capable of meeting that demand. Within seven days countries respond and say that there are no known producers of frozen passion fruit nectar in my country, others may say there are but they are unable to fulfill that particular order. It is on that basis that the company in Vieux-Fort can now order their nectar from wherever else in the world. The average citizen does not know that. We do it as a matter of course and we do not tell people that this is something that we do. So when people tell you, oh they just see all those products on the shelves from overseas, it’s not because those products are replacing, or are prioritized over products from the region. It’s because the process will indicate that there are no known suppliers of that particular product in the region.

We need to be able to tell our story. That’s the point that I’m making. We need to be able to meet citizens and not just meet governments which might be another challenge that the
Secretariat faces. The Secretariat’s main client is government. I think we need to redefine who our main client is or we can have more than one main client. The business community is a client; the consumer is a client. That example that I just gave you, if the average person knows that, the average person knows how to respond to some of those issues and therefore there must be engagement – constant engagement – for people to fully understand what the Secretariat does. So that’s one example.

How do we do it? I’ve said – and we may be looking into that as a recommendation – I think we need to be able to have non-academic courses so the average citizen who is sitting home just browsing social media can do a 30-minute course on CARICOM. Do a 30-minute course on Regional Integration. Do a 30-minute course on the Federation. Do a 30-minutes course on OECS. You don’t require any qualifications to enter the course; you get a certificate to show that you have completed. Let people learn about the Secretariat without making it an academic exercise. So I’m actually looking into that as one of the things I want to introduce moving forward; for persons to do those course and to build their own knowledge on what the Secretariat does and what CARICOM is all about.

Chadia Mathurin: I love that idea. Just to question something you said earlier, and this isn’t a question for the interview, this is off the record. Why is it that one [a member state or Ministry of Trade] must write to the Secretariat? Why can’t you all develop a database where a Ministry seeking to make an order [on behalf of a trader] can go, look and see what’s available and then move forward from there. In essence, leverage technology to make the process less complex, more efficient and more transparent.

Dr. Armstrong Alexis:Um, I think you can make that an on the record question.

Chadia Mathurin: [laughs]

Dr. Armstrong Alexis:The issue is that change takes a while and sometimes you have to make baby steps before you can make that great leap forward. Technology is certainly available now to make the processes that we go through much simpler and much more user-friendly so I would have no opposition to doing it; to exploring what you have just suggested, as long as it works [and] as long as member states embrace the idea. But certainly when the Common External Tariff was put in place, perhaps the technology was not as developed as it is now to do it in the way that you have suggested. But that’s one of the things we need to do.

We need to be able to understand the real world in which we operate, the changes that are taking place, the dynamism of the ecosystem in which we work and for us to be responsive enough in order to grow and in order to do things differently. If we continue to do things in the same old way that we have been doing it for many years, then as an institution we’re not growing; as a region we’re not growing. So whilst what I explained to you earlier is how it is done, I am under no illusion that this is the only way it can be done, and there might be opportunities going forward for us to review that and to rely more on technology and also make it more transparent, make it more client-oriented, so it’s not just the people in the ministry who are signing off on those documents, and the people in CARICOM who are signing off on those documents, are the only ones who know what happens, but that the average citizen – like you said – knows because there is an open portal through which that information can be made available. I certainly agree with that. I think it’s something that we will have to reflect on going forward because technology now allows us to be that transparent in the processes that we undertake.