By Robert A. Emmanuel
As the United Kingdom begins to clamp down on visa-free access to Dominicans, claiming the country’s CIP programme is being abused, what does this ultimately mean for Antigua and Barbuda and other CIP nations in the region?
To answer these questions, Observer spoke to Dr Kristina Hinds, senior political science lecturer at the UWI Cave Hill Campus with interest focusing on the citizenship by investment programmes in the Caribbean.
Citizens of Honduras, Namibia, Timor-Leste and the Commonwealth countries of Dominica and Vanuatu will now require visas to enter the UK, including for visitation purposes.
According to the London-based news outlet The Independent, the UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman wrote in a letter that Vanuatu and Dominica’s “operation of a citizenship by investment scheme has shown clear and evident abuse” and has been granting “citizenship to individuals known to pose a risk to the UK”.
Dr Hinds said although it was unlikely that the move would have a major impact on the countries’ CIP programmes, she noted that she was not surprised by the UK decision.
“If I were in Antigua and Barbuda, I would certainly be paying a lot of attention to this development; I know there has been efforts by the countries that have these programmes to tighten up on the vetting and the application process to avoid these kinds of things but what I have observed… is that despite efforts to try and comply more with the requirements of external entities, it seems as though the goalposts shift more and more,” she explained.
In March, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, and St Lucia signed an agreement with US authorities on new due diligence principles.
This was an attempt to assuage their concerns and included a collective agreement on the treatment of CIP denials, enhanced interviews, additional checks by each country’s Financial Intelligence Unit, further auditing of the programme, law enforcement in retrieval of passports, and the suspension of application processing for Russians and Belarussians.
It was also hoped that the US would become an ally as OECS countries sought to negotiate with the UK and the EU on their CIP concerns.
Many countries around the world—including the US, Canada, UK and some members of the European Union—have employed some form of investor residency or investor citizenship programme.
Many of these programmes have been suspended, according to official sources, over security concerns.
Dr Hinds noted that part of the thinking could be a “dampening of demand” for these CIP initiatives.
“That may be part of the rationale behind imposing some of these restrictions. The demand, in part, for these programmes is wide visa-free entry, but if the places that are allowing this visa-free entry are not pleased with the programmes, then their response could have some repercussions,” she explained.
For many of the Eastern Caribbean islands, the citizenship by investment programme represents a stable injection of capital into regional economies, as many of the OECS nations do not have natural resources nor a strong secondary industry to support the dominant tourism sector.
As widely reported during the Covid-19 pandemic, global tourism was left in tatters as airports, cruise lines, hotels and other parts of the tourism sector were forced to close or had extremely limited operations, placing heavy financial burden on those nations heavily reliant.
However, Dr Hinds noted that the relatively inexpensive nature of the region’s CIP programmes, as well as the lack of residency requirements for citizenship, will continue to lead to heightened scrutiny of them.
“When compared to other places that have this, it is quite affordable for those who have a certain amount of wealth… and it is not to say that these countries have not faced scandals as well because they have…but I compare it to things like blacklisting and green-listing of Caribbean countries as tax havens,” she said.
For a comparison, Malta—an EU member state that also has a citizenship by investment programme – states that to be eligible, individuals must pass a “fit and proper test”.
As stated on the country’s Immigration Department website, “applicants must have a clean criminal record, and the Malta government conducts extensive criminal checks with Interpol, the International Criminal Court, and various other sources and authorities. As part of the due diligence process, applicants must also provide a police certificate before they will be approved for Malta citizenship”.
Additionally, investment into the programme requires being a resident in Malta for up to 12 months (for investments worth €750,000 [US$835,000]) or 36 months (for investments worth €600,000).
In Antigua and Barbuda, investment into the programme ranges from US$100,000 (for the National Development Fund) up to US$1.5 million (for the business investment option)—according to the CIP website.
Individuals also are only required to spend a minimum of five days in Antigua and Barbuda, after approval of their citizenship.
“There is greater scrutiny on these initiatives in the Caribbean [by the larger states] because there is a level of suspicion that you are just trying to earn a fast buck and, because of this, there is not sufficient surveillance on these initiatives,” she said.
Dr Hinds has written multiple research papers on the subject, including one entitled ‘Caribbean Citizenship by Investment: Modern Pirates of the Caribbean?’ which, in its conclusion, highlights some of the concerns.
“Another significant controversy relates to the security implications of CIPs as the programmes can help to enable money launderers or those fleeing arrest to travel between jurisdictions in search of safety or to gain greater access to the world through the acquisition of ‘stronger’ passports,” she writes in the paper.
One of the most high-profile cases for Antigua and Barbuda has been the story of Mehul Choksi who gained citizenship through the twin island nation’s CIP scheme and continues to fight extradition to India in connection to a US$1.4 billion Punjab National Bank fraud case.
