CARICOM INFORMATION MINISTERS IN SPECIAL EMERGENCY DISCUSSIONS ON CMC

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is spear-heading an all-out effort to get the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) back on stream, mobilising support from various sectors of civil society to shore-up the efforts of the executive body of the regional media house.

A special emergency meeting of CARICOM Ministers responsible for Information will be convened in Antigua and Barbuda on Monday, 28 January 2002, to hammer out a course of action to ensure the resumption and sustainability of the functioning of the CMC.

Expressing regret at its Fourteenth Meeting earlier this month, the four-member Bureau of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM said its concern stemmed from the vital role the regional media must play in the integration process.

In the run-up to the Information Ministers meeting, CARICOM's executive arm, the Secretariat, and the CMC executive held preliminary discussions on the CMC's problems. They explored ways and means in which the Community could provide assistance, lending perspective to the upcoming deliberations of the Information Ministers.

The CARICOM Bureau had expressed concern at the temporary suspension of operations of the CMC and its implications for the Community and directed that the Information Ministers convene a special emergency Meeting to discuss the issue. Antigua and Barbuda's Prime Minister, Lester Bird, had earlier written his colleagues and the Secretary-General of CARICOM on the matter, proposing the convening of a meeting of Ministers of Information, which he offered to host.

The Barbados-headquartered regional media house, which had put a temporary halt to its operations at the beginning of this year, had been providing a free flow of intra-regional news for over two decades, at one time through separate entities, the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) and the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) before merging into the single entity, CMC.