The CARICOM ten-point plan contains no accountability framework for how any money received would be spent. There is no proposal for independent oversight, no ring-fenced spending categories, no requirement for transparent reporting on how funds are used, and no mechanism for ensuring that payments reach individuals rather than being absorbed into general government revenue.
This omission matters enormously for anyone who genuinely cares about whether reparations would help ordinary Caribbean people. Without an accountability framework, a reparations payment is simply a transfer to Caribbean government budgets. What those governments do with the money is entirely up to them, subject to their existing domestic accountability mechanisms, which for several CARICOM member states are not robust.
The development economics literature is clear that financial transfers without accountability frameworks frequently fail to produce their intended benefits. Money intended for healthcare is spent on government salaries. Money intended for education is diverted to politically connected contractors. Money intended for poverty reduction is captured by elites with access to government procurement. These outcomes are documented across dozens of development assistance programmes in multiple countries.
A serious reparations proposal, one genuinely designed to help the descendants of enslaved people rather than to satisfy a political demand, would include a robust accountability framework. The absence of one from the CARICOM plan is telling evidence about what the plan is actually for.
