CARICOM LIFE FUND
Kamla urges regional leaders to use Petroleum Fund to save children's lives
By Andy Johnson Montego Bay, Jamaica
Story Created: Jul 5, 2010 at 1:06 AM ECT
(Story Updated: Jul 5, 2010 at 10:07 AM ECT )
PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar came here to her first Caricom summit with a bag of suggestions for the consideration of her colleagues, urging them to take action on what she considered to be some of the critical issues facing the region.
Speaking for 20 minutes, two-and-a-half times more than the eight minutes she was allotted on the programme schedule, she told the opening ceremony last evening the region should consider such issues as the environment, education and the plight of women and children as requiring urgent pan-Caribbean effort and action.
She said leaders should consider using the Petroleum Fund to support expenditures in these and other areas, saying that her government would maintain its commitment to the fund.
Even as she put them on notice that her administration would make what she called "some strategic shifts in policy direction", she rushed to assure her audience that "our commitment to Caricom and to the integration movement remains unchanged".
While she said that the movement had served as a catalyst for achievement of a viable economic community, and like those who spoke before she praised some of the achievements of the movement over its 37-year history, Persad-Bissessar said there was need to do more.
"We must work harder to reduce poverty, so that more of our people can enjoy a better standard of living," she said.
She said there was also room for greater improvement in the provision of healthcare and in the preparation for and the responses to natural disasters.
She said the region's history of being able to "speak with one voice" on many critical international issues was a factor which enhanced the stature of the nations in Caricom in the international community.
Earlier in her address, the Prime Minister directly addressed Haitian President Rene Preval, saying that since it was the first time she was addressing him as one head to another, she was reaffirming the commitment of the government and people of Trinidad and Tobago to assist the government and people of Haiti, in the wake of the devastation wrought by the earthquake on January 12.
Referring later to the "C&BTT" campaign to Clean and Beautify Trinidad and Tobago launched last month under the auspices of her office, Persad-Bissessar presented it as a possible model for consideration of a pan-Caribbean programme on addressing environmental concerns.
She said it was one of the issues she would put to the table for further discussion in the working sessions of the conference which begin this morning.
She then led to what she saw as the significance of the Petroleum Fund, again pledging that her government was "firmly committed to sustaining and strengthening it", while suggesting that along with this there must be a commitment to greater accountability as to how it was used.
Here she laid out her proposals for the fund to be spent in those areas and on those issues she felt important for the greater advancement of people across the region.
"It is ironic that in this region we are islands, yet we pay so little attention to the state of the environment," she said.
"We are losing our competitive edge in education," she added.
And on the question of healthcare, she raised the issue of her government's implementation of the campaign promise to start the Children's Life Fund, which is committing $100 million to help provide critical surgery for children with critical and life-threatening conditions.
"Perhaps the Petroleum Fund could be used to help start a Pan-Caribbean effort like this," she told the gathering, adding that she could think of no better way for the fund to be used and proposing to seek further discussions on it over the course of the summit.
Persad-Bissessar was one of four Caricom heads to speak at last evening's opening, the others being Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerritt, Dr Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister of St Kitt's and Nevis, and conference host, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
Also in her address, the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister reiterated part of the introduction to her which said that she considered Jamaica as her second home.
She said she spent 14 years here, during which time she studied, taught and lived.
She fell in love here, she said, and it was here that she attended her very first political meeting.
Bob Marley's music, she told the audience, was a central part of the music for her campaign, adding that all these things contributed to the fact that Jamaica had helped produce the person who was now the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
But having spent some time in Barbados as well, she said, those experiences helped shape her Caribbean consciousness.
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