Americans jumpy says Manning
The staging of the Fifth Summit of the Americas cost the country a mere $350 million – not $1 billion or $1.5 billion as touted in certain quarters.
Prime Minister Patrick Manning ended all speculation when he released this figure during a two-hour television appearance on Tuesday night in which he fielded questions from CNC3 news presenter Shelly Dass and callers.
Giving a breakdown, the Prime Minister said that $120 million was spent on the rentals of two cruise ships, $125 million on “legacy” items which were mainly luxury vehicles and $105 million on matters like security, health etc.
The previous night in a television interview with the same reporter, Trade Minister Mariano Browne, who was in charge of the organization of the Summit, said that a figure would be made public in a fortnight.
In the wide ranging interview, the Prime Minister referred to the Americans as “jumpy” when it came to security, noting that their delegation would have been 800 and not 1,000 if Barack Obama was not elected.
He gave the assurance that security measures would not be as stringent for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) which would be attended by 54 leaders in late November.
Prime Minister Manning insisted that the budget for both meetings is $632 million.
He saw a change in the attitude of leaders which suggested a whole change taking place in the approach of leaders in the Western Hemisphere “in the conduct of our business”.
When asked if he believed Port of Spain had something to do with it he replied in the affirmative, pointing out “because of the way we conduct our business.”
“It has been quite a successful conference especially in circumstances where the level of expectations was not very high and it was felt that things would have gone wrong. There would have been a lot of disaffection, a lot of bad blood. None of that emerged. In fact, what emerged was the coming together of a spirit we had not seen in a long time.”
His view was that “we did well, if I am to be guided by the comments.”
The Prime Minister was at pains to explain the process leading to the signing of the Declaration of Port of Spain.
There was a process of consultation which involved a Surge group of technocrats from all 34 countries with a concept paper being presented and then a draft Declaration of Port of Spain.
On April 2, consensus was arrived at by all 34 countries on the draft declaration. The next step was ratification by the leaders.
He further explained that in the Western Hemisphere there is no unanimity rule which means that ratification does not require the unanimity but instead consensus.
What had to happen then was the adoption of the document at the political level.
He added that “the signing was a formality as it were a presentation to the national community and to the world”.
“The signing of the document really is largely a public relations issue, you know. To present the document to the national community and the international community demonstrating that there was concurrence by all but you don’t have to have concurrence by all because there is no unanimity rule as we have in Caricom.”
Maybe, CNC3 had foreseen some confusion among viewers when they heard terms like “adoption”, ‘ratification”, “unanimity” and “consensus” and the fine line separating such concepts or the “nuances” as Manning put it and interspersed the interview with innumerable commercials every few minutes, providing the opportunity for bathroom breaks or the refilling of drinks.
On the other hand, such interventions could have been interpreted as insensitive if not rude as it impinged on the Prime Minister’s precious time, particularly, since he must be short of sleep after such an intense Summit.
There were three areas of disagreement in the document, Manning revealed.
The first was a reference to democratic countries in the first line and it was felt that the word “democratic” excludes Cuba and the ALBA countries disagreed with it.
The second disagreement was that there was no statement that addresses Cuba and the Cuba issue and the ALBA countries felt that the document was incomplete but they were unable to negotiate in the meetings of technocrats.
The third disagreement was the contention that the document did not address the world financial situation.
The Prime Minister said that he was aware of the different positions on some issues held by some Latin American leaders and travelled to several countries to discuss these issues.
However, the many callers to the station all commended Manning for a job well done.