At their just-concluded meeting in Jamaica, the Caricom Heads of Government once again trespassed on my patience. I must say something on two aspects of this latest intrusion.

First, much has been said about Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar's apparent hard line on Trinidad and Tobago assistance to Caricom. I certainly would not have used the ATM comparison. It came over as a putdown, and no one likes to be put down, especially in public. But I have no problem at all with the principle she raised. Let me first go back a bit.

In the late 1970s, just before its precipitous collapse, the price of oil reached a level then considered unimaginably high. For many in this country, distorting Eric Williams' actual words and meaning, money had already become "no problem".

Williams himself seemed to fall victim to the distortion, and his government began — there was a strong flavour of contempt in its conduct — to dole out money to Caricom governments beating a path to its door. I say "dole out" deliberately, and I will give you an example from my time as High Commissioner to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean (EC) in the latter part of the 1980s.

We had made available to an EC country a considerable amount of money as a loan. No repayment was being made, however, and with our revenue shrinking fast as the oil price rapidly declined in the 1980s, we were like Max Senhouse: we needed the money. On instructions, I raised the matter with the government concerned and was told, with a smirk, that we had not made a loan, we had made a gift. And so we had: we had handed over the entire sum without a signed agreement. T&T taxpayers' money had taken flight, never to return. And you wonder why people sniggered at us?

To my horror, I have learned that the last administration took the same approach to Haiti, and I expect to other Caricom states as well: we were "assisting" these countries with contributions and not asking how our money was being spent. Worse, I was informed that it was considered improper to ask, because one didn't deal with sovereign states that way! Our money! Do you believe that the World Bank, say, as donor or lender, would utter and practise such irresponsible foolishness?

So if the Prime Minister is introducing and tightening rules governing the use of our money, more power to her. Loans and grants must be made for specific, agreed purposes, and their implementation closely and continuously monitored. If necessary, sanctions should be applied. Nor must regular reports to our public be neglected. For all his laxity and largesse, Williams did put out a document called "Accounting for the petrodollar". I would strongly suggest that this government do something similar, going back five years in the first instance, and then on a continuing basis.

My second issue is governance. There is nothing new in the proposition that Caricom is inefficiently run: summit decisions are often inadequate, implementation of the worthwhile ones often non-existent. To address this shortcoming, the 1992 Ramphal West Indian Commission proposed the creation of a Caribbean Commission "with competence to initiate proposals, update consensus, mobilise action and secure the implementation of Caricom decisions in an expeditious and informed manner." The recommendation was rejected out of hand that year by the Caricom Heads.

Eighteen years later, things have only grown worse. All sorts of working groups and high-level committees have in that period studied the matter, which nonetheless remains unresolved. Now this month, our leaders, in another of their frequent non-decisions, set up yet another committee to, yes, study the matter.

You know what the problem is, don't you? Rickey Singh speaks of "a lack of collective will to overcome parochialism and a narrow sense of nationalism in favour of a shared vision of 'one people, one market, one Caribbean…'" But it is more than that. It is also, and particularly, that in these little places of ours self-importance is generally in inverse proportion to size and standing; office and title dominate and skew perceptions and behaviour.

Thus PJ Patterson, now an elder statesman, says that Caricom must have a full-time implementation mechanism. As Prime Minister of Jamaica, however, Mr Patterson was entirely dismissive of the Ramphal proposal for just such a mechanism. "I don't think," the Express of October 31, 1992 reported him as saying, "that when you are dealing with sovereign states compliance is necessarily secured…by some group laying down the law" (as if this was what Ramphal was suggesting) "without the capacity to enforce the law. We are talking about sovereign states; that must never be forgotten." (My emphasis.) Quite.

In our region, solicitude for sovereignty and political position has generally trumped good management and common sense. Nearly two decades after Ramphal, our leaders are still dithering over the fundamental governance aspect of the regional movement. Some leaders. Even one of their number, Ralph Gonsalves, is unhappy.

Singh thinks that the announcement of the new committee "cannot seriously be regarded as anything of significance." I agree, although — the unrepentant optimist — I'm willing to be proved wrong. If not, the Caricom people will be left holding the short end of the stick. As usual.

• Reginald Dumas is a retired diplomat and former head of the public service