8
Caribbean Life, April 7-13, 2022
By Bert Wilkinson
When the banana exports
scheme from the Caribbean to
Europe collapsed in the late 90s,
it sent governments on a frantic
search for alternative revenues to
replace foreign exchange earnings
from the fruit.
By then as well, duty free trade in
the Caribbean Community’s single
trading market had begun to soar,
meaning that taxes imposed on traditionally
imported items had to
be abandoned, resulting in further
revenue losses.
To add to their economic woes,
many island nations have been
forced to find hundreds of millions
of dollars to replace infrastructure
damaged by increasingly powerful
annual mega storms which help to
deplete national treasuries.
The result is that several Eastern
Caribbean nations, limited as
well by small markets, tiny populations
and a lack of resources, have
moved to raise millions in revenues
through a controversial program
referred to as citizens by investment
schemes or (CBI) through
which foreigners could obtain local
citizenships and passports by paying
a prescribed fee, contributing to
investment programs and passing
key background character tests.
For some countries like Dominica,
the CBI program has been an
overwhelming success, with Prime
Minister Roosevelt Skerrit recently
saying that the island nation has
raised more than $500 million in the
past three years from the scheme to
fund several key projects and to help
rebuild after mega storms Irma and
Maria in recent years.
Similar success stories have
emanated from St. Kitts, Antigua,
St. Lucia and Grenada which have
similar programs but the sub region
which thought it had just about
found a golden avenue to maintain
revenue streams, is now reporting
that the scheme is under threat of
extinction from bullying from the
US and The European Union (EU).
Two American Congressmen,
Burgess Owens and Steve Cohen
have introduced the No Travel For
Traffickers Act, barring citizens
from any country with an active
CBI program from visa free travel
to the US and by extension, Europe
as the two will cooperate to punish
those with such schemes.
Introduction of the Bill has been
timed to coincide with threats
from the EU to also cancel visa
free access for participating CBI
countries to a large part of western
Europe covered by the Schengen
visa entry syetem. Antiguan Prime
Minister Gaston Browne says the
US and Europe are demanding an
end to the lifeline program contending
that the region does not
have the capacity to conduct proper
due diligence on applicants buying
citizenship and local passports,
charges he and other leaders deny
vehemently.
“Our due diligence is robust. As
far as we are concerned our Citizenship
by Investment (CIP) program
does not represent any risk to these
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit addresses the 72nd
United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New
York, U.S., Sept. 23, 2017. REUTERS / Eduardo Munoz, File
countries as they so put it. I have
taken the opportunity to write to
policy makers and parliamentarians
in the EU to let them know
the impact they are about to inflict
on our programs and the impact
on our economies,” Browne told a
recent radio interviewer.
For Antigua, he said, revenues
from its program account for up to
15 percent of total earnings, but for
others, this could rise to up to 50
percent and have devastating consequences.
“If these countries are successful
in undermining the CIP program,
it will create significant problems
for our OECS currency union countries.
You can imagine the impact
for these countries,” Browne said
even as Antiguan Foreign Minister
Chet Greene has vowed that the
island will fight to the bitter end to
maintain the program.
Caribbean citizenship, passport
scheme under threat