I was quite disturbed by a February 9, 2012 report by Caribbean360 at the following weblink:http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/grenada_news/553956.html#ixzz1lzRjTKxP
The report raised an alarm about the likelihood of the Maurice Bishop International Airport shutting down because of Grenada defaulting on a US$25 million (EC$70 million) debt to Taiwan and of the latter country winning an injunction in a US court of law for airlines and cruise ships to deposit the relevant port taxes into an escrow account in restitution. Taiwan was collecting some six years after Grenada broke diplomatic ties with it in 2005.
Major airlines – American, Virgin Atlantic, Delta, British Airways – had already begun complying with the court order. Mercifully, Caribbean Airlines was proceeding as normal. At the time of the report, half a million US dollars had already been paid into the account.
Seeing the spectre of an airport shutdown and a crash of Grenada’s tourism, Rodney George, chairman of the Airport Authority, found himself under great stress. He wailed, almost incoherently:
“The revenues that we normally collect, that would just not be available to us. That would just flow into this escrow account. And it means the revenues that we normally collected, that will be used to service our debt and our normal operating cost like salaries – that money would just not be available to us.
“We really do not have much avenues to do anything because our position with our bankers… . We are up to our neck as far as our overdraft limit is concerned, so I suppose the only option now is to see if we can get central government to make up the shortfall until this is cleared.”
It’s now a fortnight since the story broke and the airport is still open and active – so Caribbean Airlines informs me – so the airport is managing somehow. I suppose Mr George has been able to have the overdraft extended for another month; or the Grenada cabinet found the money and paid off Taiwan; or Caricom intervened to have member states chip in and help Grenada wipe the egg off its face and theirs. I don’t know.
But the matter is deeply disturbing and raises a number of awkward questions. How long did Grenada default on its debt for before Taiwan was forced to go to court for their injunction? Was Grenada aware of the seriousness of the matter all along and, if so, what did they do to resolve it? Was their situation so parlous that they could not pay? Did they seek Caricom’s help? In particular, did they seek Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s help – as they did Patrick Manning’s in another matter? Were they hoping Taiwan would exercise more patience?
In the world we live in, we cannot escape debt – America’s debt, for instance, runs into the trillions of dollars, most of it to China – but one thing we cannot do is not pay up. The debt collectors would come running and they would be equipped to harm. And international business is so organised that there are various binding legal reliefs that can be won in non-local courts.

If things are really tight, we could rely on good relations with the creditor for some desperate ease. But Grenada is not on speaking terms with Taiwan and has not been for six years! And if national pride did not produce what some of us call “big mind”, Grenada could appeal to Trinidad and Tobago for help. But Ms Persad-Bissessar has already served notice, against the run of Caribbean history and inter-island relationships, that the country is not some Caribbean ATM.
Grenada cannot afford to let its airport shut down; too much of its economic and psychological well-being depends on it staying active. Rodney George highlighted the possible impact on salaries but there are far more serious impacts he could have pointed to – like the impact on a myriad employee-intensive businesses, or on import and export trading, or on traveller confidence in a desperately crowded tourism industry.
The biggest impact for me is the one on Grenada’s and, by extension, Caricom member states’ international image in the community of nations. What happens to Grenada has a strong potential to happen to all of us, for we are bedfellows in socioeconomic dream and reality. And all our member states could easily become international pariahs.
So what can we do about the problem?
The first course of action is a Caribbean-wide discussion about Grenada’s current debt to Taiwan and, more generally, about Caribbean debt to the foreign world.
Such a discussion, probably best led by Caricom or, if not, by Caribbean economists, might focus on issues like development of domestic capital in all member states, development of common trade platforms and responses vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and structural democratic involvement of the people in the contracting of international debt.

Three other options we might consider are: 1) floating a Caribbean bond for Caribbean indebtedness; 2) Caribbean businessmen buying out the Taiwanese debt; and 3) Grenadians everywhere being called upon to contribute to a pool of funds to buy out the debt in exchange for repayment with interest down the road and/or application of their contribution to their normal tax obligations over a stretch of time.
I speak, of course, in ignorance of what the current state of indebtedness to Taiwan is and of Grenada’s ability to pay. I also speak as if EC$70 million is an overwhelming sum.
Is it really?
* Winford James is a UWI
lecturer and political analyst