Over 20 Barbadian frontline personnel are now better equipped to streamline information to facilitate improved access to data under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and to better share this information among national and regional authorities.
This was stated by Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister???s Office, Sonja Welch, as she delivered the feature address to open a two-day training programme on the CARICOM Trade and Competitiveness Project (CTCP) Workflow Management System, yesterday, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
The programme involves software upgrade procedures and CARICOM Single Market approved actions. In her remarks, Ms. Welch explained that the CTCP was conceptualised to advance implementation of the CSME to create better opportunities for the people of the region to actively participate and benefit from the CSME.
She said: ???This ambitious programme will take this region toward deeper integration in the area of strategic economic development, for example, the functioning of the Single Market, and technical and information sharing.?????This Single Market and Economy is our own. Each of us must own this programme for our people, communities, economies, cultures, and region as a whole. It depends on us for realisation.???
The Permanent Secretary stressed that in order for the implementation process to be successful, Member States must reform or introduce appropriate administrative procedures and practices to make sure CARICOM nationals are facilitated so that they could enjoy their full rights as guaranteed under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
She said that the first phase of the CTCP, Component 100, was launched in Barbados in February 2012, and was designed to increase operational capacity and effectiveness of the CSME by improving the administrative systems and related legislation for the five regimes of the CSME, namely, establishment, skills, services, goods, and capital.
???Since the launch in 2012, key stakeholders in Barbados have been interviewed and current procedures and legislation studied to ensure that the Barbados CSME processes are fully documented and reviewed by the CARICOM Secretariat and its consultants,??? Ms Welch stated.
Funding for Component 100 of the CTCP was provided by the government of Canada. It saw consultants visiting 12 Member States and examining the main administrative systems of ministries, as well as non-state institutions that are involved in the administrative processes related to the five regimes of the CSME.
Under the CTCP, some 50 regional projects on the environment, communication, vocational training and administration of the CSME and its regimes have been completed.Facilitators, A-Z Information Jamaica Limited, will present their findings to CARICOM Member States and make recommendations for a regional, harmonised, tabulated and improved administrative operating system for a fully functioning Single Market.
cathy.lashley@barbados.gov.bb