Britain is warning that a poorly managed economic citizenship programme could result in visa requirements for people travelling with Antigua & Barbuda passports.
Second Secretary at the British High Commission in Barbados, Daniel Carruthers, said while London does not oppose that economic initiative, it must be above board.
Carruthers said Britain is more concerned about the safety of its citizens than what countries do to sustain their economies.
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I guess the politicians on both sides of the aisle could be characterized as ‘corrup”. I remember being in Dominica in the 90s and being offered an “economic citizen” passport by a member of the UWP. I believe he was bragging more than anything since he knew that I was married to one of his fellow citizens. The price quoted was U$25,0000.00. Listening to Dwyer Astaphan, former Tourism and Security Minister in St. Kitts, there is every reason why citizens of these small islands should be concerned that their politicians are not just trying to sell out their birth-rights and selling back into slavery like our ancestors did to the Europeans for some fancy baubles. The flashing of money they feel is all it takes to make us grovel without thinking of all the ramifications of an economic citizenship programme – how it will impact the social and racial composition of our people; how it will affect the price of land for the many poor people who still aspire to own a piece of their rock; how it could attract all kinds of unsavoury characters and will then force countries that do not now require visa of us, to implement such progammes as our countries are used as stepping stones to their countries. In shor, we need to weigh the benefits against the negatives and we need to be consulted about whether we want this programme, not token consultations after decisions have already been made to go down that road.
Very telling! They have already announced visa requirements for people travelling on St. Lucia passports. Are we next?
Antigua all you better doh follow Dominica nah. See how much roro Dominica find itself in for the sake of Economic Citizenship. Trust me, it’s not worth it.
We seem to be fooled on the Next Level programme by the smooth diplomatic language of professional ambassadors, who are trained to say the nicest things about a country, its leaders and its people even though they are at war with you.
The UK and the US are always more concerned with their own national interest over the impact of their actions on the socio-economic or political realities in another country. Therefore, we in Dominica cannot afford to get too complacent by simply replaying the recording of a foreign ambassador as a testimony that all is well with our foreign relations and our economic citizenship programme.
The British like the US are concerned about Dominica’s economic citizen programme also. They are also concerned with the way our programme is administered (or lack thereof) and the lack of proper/adequate due diligence checks with which we sell our diplomatic passports to criminals.
Britain wants economic citizenship programmes to be “properly monitored” with “very thorough” due diligence checks and to ensure that people trying to obtain that type of citizenship have a “physical link” to the country. Is that the case with our programme? No. It is way too easy to get our passport.
There is nothing to suggest that the Dominican Economic Citizenship programme is being managed well-
We must be extremely concerned about the integrity of the economic citizenship programme that we operate in Dominica by a bunch of greedy, desperate and corrupt politicians. There are simply too many stories and evidence of people who obtain our passports with bad intentions coupled with rather loose due diligence checks.
Respectfully
Roseau Valley