OECS’ integration vital to socio-economic objectives

DESPITE making noteworthy progress in the delivery of liberal democracy, the rule of law, the right to freedom expected of a civilised society and meeting United Nations Human Development indices, the countries that make up the Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) have still not reached anywhere near their potential when it comes to economic growth and development.

Yet, what this 30-plus-year-old economic union has managed to thus far achieve, and any future success, will determine significantly if the full goals of wider Caribbean Community, in the form of CSME, can be realised.

Sir Dwight Venner shares a light moment with the daughter (centre)
and wife of the late Patrick A. M. Emmanuel, remembered and honoured
as one of the region's outstanding political scientists and scholars.

Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Sir Dwight Venner, told those gathered for the Eighth Patrick Emmanuel Memorial Lecture Series, which took place at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus recently, that integration, particularly the next level of economic union envisioned in the Revised Treaty of Basseterre establishing the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Economic Union, was necessary for obtaining the socio-economic objectives, not only of the OECS, but also the region as a whole.


The Governor said, “In the region, we have two integration models operating side by side: CARICOM and the OECS. The OECS is a much deeper arrangement which has been upgraded in the New Treaty to be an economic union.

“The success of OECS, in my opinion, is a necessary condition for the success of CARICOM. If the OECS with its much closer and deeper arrangement [and with] its common currency cannot succeed, then [the chances of CARICOM doing so are that much less.]”

Sense of urgency

He further remarked that a much more closely co-ordinated and economically advanced OECS would substantially increase per capita incomes  of its citizens, and remove the stigma that the stronger economies had of it as being “poor relations”.

Sir Dwight stressed at that point that in order to get to this point, the New Treaty, which was ratified in 2011, must be implemented as a matter of urgency. This sense of urgency in forging ahead, he noted, was made all the more difficult as “forces outside and within the region” continued to predict the OECS’ possible demise.

He criticised the rating agency Moody’s for seemingly taking every opportunity to “herald the demise of our currency and currency union”. He charged that such entities continued to call for the devaluation of the EC dollar, and for the dismantling of the currency union, which, according to Sir Dwight, had been largely responsible for the sub-region’s sustainability since achieving their independence. (RA)