On Thursday, 17th October, Prime Minister Dr Terrance Drew delivered a National Address to the citizens and residents of St Kitts and Nevis. It was a comprehensive address that spoke to the past, present, and future. The address clearly shows that The Federation of St Kitts and Nevis is moving onwards and upwards. The address outlined the state of the Citizenship by Investment while presenting to the citizens and residents the path forward in developing our sustainable island state agenda.
STATE OF THE CBI
Prime Minister Drew spoke to the vulnerability of the citizenship by investment programme highlighting its
vulnerability due to international politics and scrutiny. In previous publications by me both on radio and through this medium I spoke to these vulnerabilities I further pointed out that the primary attraction to any citizenship by investment programme is visa free travel so called developed countries that the home passports of the varying nationalities of persons seeking such citizenships do not allow. Each country of the world has the right to determine who it allows to enter into its borders. Consequently, the most important characteristic of the CBI industry is not vested in the hands of the issuing country but rather the rest of the world. Hence, ices volatility. For things that have absolutely nothing to do with nefarious actions within or without any country that offers this product, it can be found that overnight its product is greatly devalued and
unattractive. This can be, because some big wealthy country doesn like the way that a small third world country is progressing, or is better able to provide its citizens with a higher standard of living, or disagree with a geopolitical or economic position taken by such country.
In reality, is each each sovereign territory, whether large or small, has the absolute right to determine who it allows into its borders. Hence, The Citizenship by Investment Industry can only be economically successful to an offering country or island if the highly desirable countries for travel to by investors allow visa free access to the citizens of the offering territory The rest of the world, including the USA, Europe, England, and Canada, know that. They therfore singularly and / or collectively apply
enormous pressure on offering states to conform with their demands, though sometimes unreasonable. Prime Minister Drew is therefore correct in espousing and advancing economic diversity as the cornerstone of his administrations economic policy by successfully executing its sustainable island state agenda.
It was a gigantic mistake for the previous Timothy Harris lead Team Unity Administration to make the economy of St Kitts and Nevis to be so heavily dependent on the CBI. For Harris and Team Unity to do that was an economic mistake of epic proportion. But even worse, to have offered tens of thousands of citizenship offering for a single ill-conceived prison project was scandalous in the least. It brought our CBI enormous local regional and international scrutiny, like never before.
The question asked over and over was why was tens of thousands of citizenship applications allowed on a single project through a single vendor, at a return of $825,000,000 USD or $2,227,500.000 EC, nearly 2.5 billion EC dollars for a prison that was budgeted by the same former Team Unity Administration at a cost of $32,592,592 USD or $88,000,000 EC. The figures show that this single agency Galaxy was allocated CBI shares for the prison project valued at twenty-five times (25x) the budgeted cost of the prison. The still unanswered question is why. Perhaps the RIC0 case will provide some answers. Perhaps we will find out why the Dr Harris is the holder of bank accounts in the USA that is alleged to be involved in financial transactions with Caribbean Galaxy to whom he allocated CBI shares valued at twenty five times (25x) the estimated cost of the prison that they were building.
A New Paradigm
It is therefore necessary and timely for a change in the direction of the t CBI and to make it truly a source of development for the wider citizenry and not merely for a few individuals such as agents and people who are connected to them. The recent laws enacted regarding the governance conduct of the CBI have placed on the path of becoming a highly valued product at between $500,000 and $1,000,000 per CBI share.
With diversification embedded in the sustainable island state agenda in renewable energy, with the development of Sola and Geothermal energy, water desalination and agriculture to include the establishment of a farm to produce pepper for export in collaboration with Tabasco.
Coupled with the commencement of several capital projects in the coming months, such as the Basseterre High School, the new Climate Smart Hospital and the Performing Arts Centre will create thousands of jobs in the construction industry. This will transform the economy of St Kitts and Nevis and set it on the path for moving forward and upwards.
