Last year, as the Caribbean Community (Caricom) celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Chaguaramas (Trinidad) that brought the regional integration movement into being, a breathtaking announcement, described then as historic, was made.

Under its Single Market and Economy (CSME) umbrella, Caricom would be moving full speed ahead to implement — beginning March 31, 2024 — the promised “full and free” movement of labour that the region’s best minds have been working on since 2019.

Just in case the Caricom doubters and cynics weren’t paying attention, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has lead responsibility for the CSME, declared that the free movement plan was “on target” at the end of the regional summit of leaders in Guyana in February this year.

We in this space are not among the doubters and cynics, instead counting ourselves as among the hopeful who embrace the vision in believing that the full movement of skills and people represent one important economic game-changer for a region that deserves better than what we have now.

It is therefore easy to understand our despondency hearing from the regional heads coming out of their just ended summit in St George’s, Grenada, that they were still unable to sign off on the arrangements to facilitate the free and full movement of Caricom nationals.

We knew something was obviously wrong when the meeting of heads planned for March this year to sign off on the agreement was scuttled. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell became the umpteenth leader to declare, “We are not there yet.”

Mr Mitchell declined to outline the impediments to free movement, likely because of diplomatic constraints. But we believe that more and not less information on such a far-reaching matter is better and allows for more credibility.

Of course, we understand that there is no magic wand to wave in order to get rid of the obstacles in the way of free movement. For example, we know that there is a great fear of people flooding a territory, thereby creating employment problems. Antigua and Barbuda is among those wanting “…to avoid dislocation of the indigenous population, protecting jobs, and avoiding exacerbation of our economic/fiscal challenge”, according to its ambassador to Caricom, Dr Clarence Henry.

The Bahamas and Bermuda have also indicated that they would not be part of the free movement of people across the region. Hopefully, with the growing shortage of labour in countries such as Jamaica, this fear will soon be a thing of the past.

In the case of Jamaica, the labour shortage has manifested in a rush to hire foreign teachers, mainly from Nigeria, Ghana, the Philippines, and India, to fill vacancies caused by resignations and teacher migration ahead of the new school year.

There are other sensitive issues to consider in the attempt to achieve full freedom of movement. One prominent example is member Haiti, which, because of current domestic instability, cannot implement free movement, even though well-managed, safe, and orderly migration between that violence-torn country and the rest of Caricom could provide much-needed support.

We implore the countries which are lagging behind to keep their eyes on the vision and to do all they can to operationalise free movement of Caricom nationals as soon as possible.