By Robert A. Emmanuel
Going forward each year, Antigua and Barbuda will be paying US $200,000 as part of a subscription fee to the newly established Swiss CIP oversight institution.
Last week, Prime Minister Gaston Browne reported to Cabinet that Swiss officials had announced the creation of an institution geared towards managing and setting global standards for the Citizenship by Investment programmes (CIP).
“[During my] trip to Switzerland, I was the featured speaker at a forum established by the Immigration/Migration Council and … there is a subscription that member countries have to pay, because they’re involved in advocacy in the European Union and, as well as, promotion of the CIP programmes within the Caribbean. So, it is about $200,000 and it will be paid by the CIU unit,” Browne said during a press conference on Tuesday.
He added that an oversight committee will be set up to audit the CIP programme, which will be headed by the Joint Regional Communications Centre (JRCC), the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and the OECS Commission.
Read more in today’s paper