PRIME Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gonsalves has warned that Caricom’s diplomatic order is under its most serious strain in decades, after a Trinidad and Tobago minister publicly confronted him in a way regional officials say bypassed every formal channel for communication between member states.

The unprecedented exchange, occurring entirely outside Caricom’s formal machinery, has stirred deep unease in the region, with some diplomats cautioning that such departures from established protocol risk undermining the Community’s long-standing framework for preventing public deterioration in relations among member governments.

The controversy escalated after Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister in the Ministry of Housing Anil Roberts, via his Doubles and Coffee social media platform, questioned the legitimacy of housing purchases by Gonsalves’ wife and two children in Trinidad and Tobago.