For some, the knee jerk reaction to the word CARICOM, is the integration of Caribbean peoples, a process spanning a long history from the days of Federation up till now, taking many forms at different levels.

St. Lucia’s Foreign Minister the Hon. George Odlum, "I think of functional co-operative between the different unit members of CARICOM. They have co-operated in a lot of areas like the University of the West Indies, Cricket and Meteorology and have co-operated effectively."

But in the minds of the majority St. Lucians and perhaps their Caribbean neighbors, CARICOM conjures up impressions of non-performance, with high flown decisions that are not effectively implemented, leaving many referring to the process as "Cari-Go" as opposed to "Cari-Com(e)."

Here are the views of  we got:

 

"They should be trying a little bit harder to see whether it real makes sense."

 

"CARICOM really hasn't come to be.  The name CARICOM has been around for a while but we have not come together as on people as yet."

 

"Some parts of it functioning, certain parts of it could be a little better."

 

"Bajan have they own currency, you have the EC currency, Guyana dollar .... that's a total mess."

Those criticisms may have been warranted, but now CARICOM has been imbued with a new sprit, one geared at meeting those criticisms and tightening up the implementation procedures.

According to Foreign Minister Odlum, "there is a machinery working now where decisions are filtered through the Council of Caribbean Foreign Ministers, allowing almost immediate ratification of decisions via the Heads of Government, and thus speeding up the process of implementation."

But what of plans for the free movement of capital and people among CARICOM member states, deepening economic integration, a process that will no doubt impact on individual sovereignty? That’s the question GIS posed to Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Earl Huntley, "Some people say that they are willing, others are not, even if they say that they are. Take the Julian Rogers case - Trinidad and Tobago has in fact passed the legislation for the free movement of skilled people in the region, and even if it had not come into law, the whole spirit and  of the law was there. You cannot have a single economy without the free movement of labour and capital in that economy."