An investigative journalist who worked on a damning international investigation and report on Dominica’s Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program has said the government on the island has consistently refused to answer questions on the program.
Switzerland-based Tony Harari was among journalists from over a dozen media firms from around the world who worked together with Washington DC-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on the investigation and the report. It was released this week and is called “Dominica: Passports of the Caribbean.” It looks into fugitives, alleged criminals, and politically connected people who have purchased citizenship and passports from Dominica, according to the OCCRP.
Speaking on the online forum Civic Vibes, Harari said the government of Dominica never responded to questions posed by the investigative team.
“If they have nothing to hide, the best option would have been to answer to us,” he said.
According to Harari, it was “weird” that the investigative team saw online “fake media”, supposedly based in India and Pakistan, publishing news stories about Dominica, that were getting more answers from the Dominican government.
“So for example, one of the questions we asked a lot of times to the government was, did you revoke any passports? Was there any checks that made you think that someone who got a passport who shouldn’t have, had it revoked…and they didn’t reply to this,” he stated. “Instead of that, they did a press conference, at least (Prime Minister Roosevelt) Skerrit did a press conference to attack our report …”
Prime Minister Skerrit did hint at the report at a recent press conference even before it was released:
“There continues to be an attempt by some in this country to destroy the [citizenship-by-investment program] and so they are colluding with international journalists and some regional journalists to propagate a lot of mischief, misinformation about our program, all in an effort to destroy it,” he said. “And some people are part of this in Dominica just because they want to get the Labour Party out of government.”
There also have been suggestions that the opposition in Dominica was involved in the investigation but Harari said that nothing could be further from the truth.
“Well first of all, if the opposition had input into that, it would mean that they have a lot of money because there was a lot of media involved,” he said. “No, of course, it’s not true. I mean, I had the opportunity to go to Dominica myself. I visited the island; it’s a very beautiful country but it is true that when you see the numbers and the money that should be coming in with the passports and the reality on the ground, it doesn’t add up.”
Harari said the investigation focused on Dominica for a number of reasons.
“First of all Dominica has a program that is one of the oldest in the region,” he explained.
“And then second, the discrepancy between the size of your island, only 72,000 living in it, (and) the number of people getting passports made it a very interesting case. I think one of the last things is also the fact that Dominica for a while was one of few countries in which you could get a cheap, relatively speaking, passport because it was one hundred thousand (dollars) and also very easy to get in the sense that it only took three months and you didn’t have to step foot on the island. So, all of those reasons made it very interesting to study more, the Dominican case. Which is not to say that all the other islands, like St Kitts and those ones, don’t also have problematic passport holders and people applying for citizenship but Dominica was a particularly serious case, at least in our understanding.”
Harari stated that while working on the investigation, he was shocked at the total lack of transparency in Dominica’s CBI’s program.
“I think what really shocked me or surprised me was the complete lack of transparency,” Harari stated.
“The fact that the opposition is sometimes trying to know or get information out or ask questions but it looks like the government doesn’t really need to tell anything or provide any kind of actual numbers or proper explanation. First, the number of people that
get the passports, what is done with the money, how much money there is. And so all of those questions which should be public information are not available, I feel. Not even for the common Dominican but even for journalists or very informed people. So, this kind of secrecy, of course, is not right for democracy.”
Because of the lack of transparency and information, it took about 15 months to do the investigation.
“I think the difficulty was that as you know the data is supposed to be public, there should be an access to the gazette, the official gazette that [has] all the names but as you probably know, not all the names are there,” Harari said.
“It is also done in a way that is very hard to collect everything and to put them together. So, it took a long time to get the 7,700, roughly, names [economic citizens] that we got knowing that this is just the tip of the iceberg because we think there is much more. I mean, depending on how conservative you are with the estimate, you could go up to thirty, forty thousand passports which is more than half of the Dominican population. It’s crazy.”
Since the release of the report and despite it being published in a number of major news outlets around the globe, at the time of publication, the government of Dominica has remained silent on the matter.
The full interview with Harari seen here: https://www.facebook.com/100066805770571/videos/292887186920014/
Skerrit has a big mouth but when the going gets rough, he runs away. The man is a COWARD.
One question they asked that I truly like is:have Dominica government; Roosevelt canceled or revoked any of the passports he sold to any of the known criminals?
That’s one question that corrupted crook can’t answer, since he knows he can’t!
And the reason is when one deals with thieves, scoundrels, and people who killed perhaps hundreds of people.
When you he take their money in exchange for citizenship, and can’t return their the criminal money to them he knows that will endanger his own life.
He knows mafia people don’t pay, they will not only open his head, they may leave his head somewhere on a stake and his body roasted and are eaten by rats he usually associates with!
Answering that question will kill the only industry he has at his disposal; which is the sale of the nation passportS.
Why all you pretend that this came as a huge surprise. All you forgotten the Yasam Ayavefe passport saga. Mister was a wanted criminal in Turkey. Turkey requested in autumn 2019 for Dominica to cancel his Dominican passport. The government of Dominica through its spin doctors stated at the time that they cannot deny Yasam Ayavefe a passport nor the renewal thereof. They also could not use the old Tony Astaphan excuse at the time that “ it was the Dominican Republic and not commonwealth of Dominica.” Just in case Anthony Astaphan, Clarence Christian or any other shameless characters try to discredit this fact – at the time the investigating journalist had a copy of said passport.
Hello and good afternoon my people. Well many countries sell their passports to highly skilled or educated people who can contribute to said country but our passports are being used to travel to better developed countries. I said prior that to solve the financial situation in our country we cannot have the Prime Minister as the Finance Minister because we will never know how much money is in the treasury. We won’t be able to account for how our Nation funds are being allocated. We need the Finance Minister to be elected otherwise we will continue to have such problems when our Prime Minister refused to answer questions.
Those passports look very Spooky to me.
Go ask your government questions about their CBI program, they’d probably be polite and send you to their web site. Who would answer questions like that?
Wow loads of comments on this one boy. One thing is strange, at least to me. Some folks don’t want questions asked but still talk of transparency, accountability and the likes.
Make no mistake here: we are not talking about Skerrit’s money. This the money of the GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF DOMINICA. And all of this happens whilst so, so many businesses and individuals cannot get paid by the Accountant General.
I cannot begin to imagine the mental anguish some government officials must be going through with that dam nonsense. And on that note, let me call Inland Revenue; I need my tax refund!!!
For those of us who will not be fooled by these CBI propagandists, right off the bat we all know that the Secret Bay Resort, Sam Raphael’s Hotel, Kempinski and Ainchi bravado is all Malachi. As a matter of fact, last year one of the CBI promoters also wrote a similar article promoting the high-level economic performance of the Anichi Hotel. In the haste to cash in on the irreputable passport sales promotion someone forgot to tell the writer who may have been sitting on a computer in Dubai or India that the Anichi Hotel is incomplete and is in reality the site of an aborted construction project, a project [allegedly] flanked by crimes of money laundering among government officials their friends and senior lawyers. Our passport (as many as 200) were sold by these Hotel Owners. What’s the return for the citizens of DA. Jobs I hear you saying? Think again! Do the citizens of DA own a share in any of these projects? The hell they do! Maybe Skerrit does.
6 days now and the Horrible CM is still hiding. He even went as far as Canada to avoid uncomfortable questions. What a sorry excuse of a man we got ourselves as Prime Minister. Who are the people that vote for this bundle of incompetence and corruption? It can’t be only dead people.
Skerrit probably is a billionaire from selling passports and has all the money in a bank in Florida instead of using it to improve the lives of Dominicans. He is robbing the country as soon as they go to get him he will flee the island like a common despot with all the money already in a foreign bank. INTERPOL should go to Dominica and have a talk with him.
Linton and his gang must be sorely disappointed that not even their dream team of investigative journalists could corroborate his narrative of missing billions (first 1.2B, then 7B, then 9B) let alone unearth their location.
These two have been key points of obsession for them. This dude needs to be exorcised. he is suffering from phantasmagoria.
@Peeping Tom
All the narratives are corroborated. The fact is billions are missing, Starboy of Stupidity does not know how many passports are sold, let alone to account for the funds. God bless honourable Linton for his intelligence, love for country, and his fearless ways of exposing corruption and corrupt actives of the Skerrit Labour Party (SLP)
He who laughs last, laughs best. The clock is ticking.
@ Peeping Tom, be honest pal. Didn’t Skerritt promise to account for the $1.4 billion shortfall in the budget presentation? This confirms that there is in fact money not accounted for. What’s so difficult to comprehend?. You don’t care about righteousness, rule of law or good governance. Selfish people only care about their pockets and bank accounts. You know this isn’t right by any stretch of the imagination that such a large sum of money is not accounted for. Instead you prefer to shoot the messenger and wallow in your strong support for the corrupt cabal. Shame on the parasites who feed off the plumber from the treasury.
The reason the people are not taking part in any protest organized by UWP,is because the people realize the people organizing the protests are scumbags.Skerrit does not have to answer to scumbags and prodigal sons.If you miserable people want questions answered go to the Hansard,immigration department or ask the 35 agents,sub agents and others involved in the CBI.Skerrit should not answer questions from scumbags with an agender,who will not believe him anyway.All scumbags can go to hell.Skerrit will answer to the PEOPLE,and he has already done that
@Lin clown
Think you can utilize your time better than this. What you are writing is a whole set of foolishness. You obviously cannot defend Skerrit, because Skerrit himself cannot do so.
There is only one solution to all these problems. SKERRIT AND HIS CABAL must go!
Imagine we have an attorney general who is supposed to be the “people’s” lawyer and he has conveniently become Skerrit’s lawyer against the people. Last week while walking with the women I could not help but wonder what is wrong with our people. They all call the radio asking for protests action yet they are all scared sheet to come out and partake in the same protest. Who cares about the drones? Like a roman soldier, I will fight to the end for my country.
STOP TALIKING AND JOIN THE ACTION PEOPLE. Skerrit and his gang MUST GO!
Stop preaching violence to your country men. Your articles before elections exhorting violence, have only relegated the opposition out of the House and to the point of irrelevance.
Dominicans are a non violent people, who believe in the rule of law. Restrict your violence to yourself.
And Bwa Banday must come. Bwa Banday us the PM.
clap clap 👏👏👏👏👏👏
Who is the members of your cabal?
clap 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 hooray Skerrit gone Bwa Banday just come. Hip hip hooray 🎉
The “I’m-the-people” leader, who boasts that he’s the channel of God for Dominica, is rotten to the core and all that he touches goes bad. He said that if you oppose what he’s doing then you are opposing God himself. The God of Abraham ain’t got nothing to do with the corruption and nepotism that’s occurring in Dominica. It’s pure blasphemy. What’s hidden will come to light at some point. Just look at the legal jeopardy that Trump is in. When he rode down the escalator he never could have foreseen that it would come to this. Similarly, the psychopath, channel and voice of God wannabe will find out in due course that he’s burnt his candle from both ends, on one end is the God of Abraham and on the other the patriots of Dominica. The truth will be revealed and the albatross will be removed from around the neck of Dominica. Tanto, Tanto time will tell.
Keep walking with your eyes closed will see how far you reach.
Who the hell is Harari and Civic Vibes? Skerrit is not accountable to you both. All that which you need to know about the CBI program have been said and discussed in the Parliament. The UWP is on a mission to destroy the CBI and to get rid of Skerrit and THEY will do anything to see if they can succeed; but they have failed and will continue to fail. The monies that they are paying those out side persons to help destroy the image of Dominica, why don’t they put those monies into good use by helping those in need on the island. The less fortunate children and the elderly for example. UWP, it’s supporters and followers are desperate and they are doing desperate things. Rubbish.
The article clearly states
“There also have been suggestions that the opposition in Dominica was involved in the investigation but Harari said that nothing could be further from the truth.
Well first of all, if the opposition had input into that, it would mean that they have a lot of money because there was a lot of media involved,” he said. “No, of course, it’s not true.”
Well, the gentleman can say “no” but the evidence is to the contrary. First, key opposition persons are listed as substantial sources of information. Second, how did these journalists select Dominica? Through a sign in the clouds? No. The topics and subtopics of this investigation are all the same that the opposition has been screaming about for the past years. Third, did you hear the wanna-be journalist refer to Harari as “brother?” We heard. This suggests close collaboration. Want more evidence? if you too are cognitively challenged as the dude at Q95, we are not.
You are always off point. In trying to defend the indefensible, you make yourself the biggest laughing stock on the forum. Your juvenile, irrational rants portray a chronologically sixty-nine, flour head man with the IQ of an infant.
This Ibo France sounds like Francisco too very rude and insultive. Proud and always know it all
The USA conspired with others and accused Iraq of possessing weapons of mass desrtuction.They falsely showed via satellite that Iraq was storing weapons of mass destruction.They got General Colin Powell(a black man) to go on television to LIE about the matter.Even Saddam Hussein denied the accusation over and over again.Despite the denial,the USA invaded Iraq and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent men,women and children on a lie.There is a conspiracy in Dominica by supporters of the blue to cut off the blood of senior citizens,thereby murdering them,by destroying the CBI.This time black people are conspiring with white people to destroy there own,supported by Ibo,MEME,Juanita.Jonathan,Francisco and the media whore on q95.
@Lin clown
The USA killed more than one million Iraquis, and then sanctioned them, when Iraq did not even have a bottle of gramoxone as their weapon of mass destruction. I am no fan of the USA, or Israel like most ignorant UWPites on this medium though… Maybe they are believing America will save them from Skerrit…😄😄😄😄😄😄.America is all about war. Not about Skerrit!!
With reference to the CBI programme your Starboy of Stupidity must be shaking in his pants. He has destroyed it with his greed and satanic smile. Ask Monfared, Alison Madueke, Rudulph King, Frachesco Corollo, etc. Can’t wait for the scamp to pay for what he has done to Dominica.
The government does not have to answer to a handful of have nothing to do lazy UWP aholes.The most important thing is the MAJORITY of Dominicans can see what this government is doing to better their standard of living.Harari and his UWP conspirators can go to hell.30,000 passports may be sold,after 18 months you can only falsely account for 7,700,what happened to the 22,300,no trace no nothing?I UWP want to know about passports contact the immigration department at Police headquarters. Citizenships are not recorded at Police headquarters but every passport is.I wonder is those overeducated UWP doctors know about CBN?
This group of reputable and impartial journalists has no axe to grind with the Roosevelt led government. All they seek for is the objective facts in an effort to eradicate corruption in the CBI program.
Roosevelt thinks by stubbornly refusing to address the many scandals in the CBI program, this report will naturally fade away like many other questionable dealings before. The longer he resists to account, the bigger the scandals grow. Concerning the CBI, only he knows where all the corrupt bodies are buried.
The sad thing is that Roosevelt is taking down all of Dominicans with him. He is giving every Dominican a bad name. Potential investors would not consider Dominica a good place to do business. The already anorexic economy will be further reduced to just skeletal remains.
Why don’t you eradicate yourself first and the rest will follow. So, apparently, he has given Ibo a bad name until you are reduced to skeletal remains, en? When will you stop writing all that gibberish on DNO? It is taking you nowhere, IBO. Election comes, election goes and, we are still in power. Ibo, find some meaningful work to do and stop making a fool of yourself. In other words, stop being an idiot. Nobody cares about you. Nobody listens to you. Your thumbs up are from UWP lazy bums. You are one hard-headed mule.
I believe that future generations of Dominicans will rue the sale of their passports.
They will consider the deal no better than that of Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
So our Prime Minister will be Jacob. He is brilliant and owe no reporters anything.
Asking this government to be transparent is like asking Mexican drug kingpins to reveal the workings of their organizations.
I would say the government is corrupt, but in fact there really is no government to speak of, it’s all Skerrit.
I would to live long enough to see this gut spend the rest of his life in a foreign prison.
I would love to get to read this report. Can anyone provide a link to this report?
ADMIN: Here is the link to the OCCRP website, there are several articles and posts on Dominica: https://www.occrp.org/en/dominica-passports-of-the-caribbean/
I wonder what is the intended outcome of this deliberate and sustained campaign to draw hostile attention to the CBI programme? What could possibly be their end goal/s? It cannot be transparency and accountability because they already have this (questions asked and answered in Parliament; details of Govt expenditure in the Budget Addresses and estimates online; the Gazette, notwithstanding its limitations, etc). It surely is not good publicity so it is not likely to be considered “promotional material.” It cannot be to dethrone Skerrit because this strategy has failed countless times and will continue to fail because most Dominicans still prefer Skerrit and the DLP. This is clear. What is your intention, really? I see no good coming from this for Dominica. As I have said before, the UWPwee and its satellites are bad news for Dominica even as they sit in the Yard.
@Putin
All those questions should be posed to the Starboy of Stupidity?Does he even know how many passports have been sold? Can he account for the monies? Do you love him? If you do, ask him those questions. Stop being a hypicrite…question your master.
“As I have said before, the UWPwee and its satellites are bad news for Dominica even as they sit in the Yard.”
If the CM had nothing to hide he would answer their questions and defend himself. Instead, in proper Skerrit style, he called one of his famous ‘Press Conferences’ that have absolutely nothing to do with a press conference. Only journalists that support his corrupt policies are allowed to ask questions which were given to them beforehand by Skerrits propaganda machine. Why doesn’t the Horrible PM defend himself if he has done nothing wrong??? Dominicans it’s time to asks more questions, mainly for independently audited CBI accounts amongst others.
“Only journalists that support his corrupt policies are allowed to ask questions which were given to them beforehand by Skerrits propaganda machine.” I don’t think that you would consider the cognitively-challenged one from Q95 who loves to ask the questions fed to him by his fans and handlers a “supporter” of Skerrit. He is pretty much always present. Clearly, you do not listen. How in tarnation can you then speak sensibly on the topic?
The deafening silence from the corrupt administration is no surprise for many of us. The Roosevelt led regime is shrouded in secrecy. This poster is to lull the population into lethargy.
It is very disconcerting that it took international journalists to unearth a small fraction of the mammoth misdeeds of this plutocracy concerning the CBI program. The local ‘journalists’ and news outlets are worthless. Their silence gives credence to accusations that they collude with the unsavory, untrustworthy ruling autocracy. They deserve our collective scorn. (Exceptions Q95 & DNO)
I hope that countries around the region and the wider international community will regard and treat Roosevelt for the pariah he is. Only corruption can make a ruler the wealthiest man from the poorest country in the western hemisphere with the exception of Haiti.
Fifteen months to investigate and all that can be revealed is lack of transparency. Did this investigative journalist read the law as it relates to the CBI to understand the payment schedule? Did this investigative journalist make any inquiries of the programs in the other islands to find out how transparent these programs are? What of Malta, Portugal and Spain and other EU countries with similar programs were their programs investigated? Why Dominica? Why not Switzerland with its secret banking where corrupt leaders deposit their loot after exploiting their population? This reporter is very wild with his numbers moving from 7700 approved applications to 40000 is a sign of total madness. The opposition definitely has a hand in this.
I find in your desperate effort to defend the indefensible when it comes to this scandal marred incumbency, you have made yourself a shameless booby. No matter how well or elegant you try dress up nonsense it is still nonsense.
You ask why Dominica was singled out for scrutiny but I wish to reply, why not Dominica? Dominica’s CBI program is at the top of the pile when it comes to scandalous violations. The UK imposed travel restrictions on Dominicans because of the serious dangers posed by holders of passports from Dominica. No other regional country with a CBI program has suffered that inconvenience and embarrassment..
@ibo France, you just found a word, “indefensible ” …please enjoy the use of this word. Tell me how many terrorist were issued with Dominican passports? What of the Russian Oligarchs that own properties in the US, UK and EU countries, they also have billions deposited in these countries some of which were seized or frozen after Russia invaded Ukraine. If Russian Oligarchs had deposited money in Dominican banks people like you would accuse Dominuca and Skeritt of money laundering. You and the UWP gave Choksi, who had acquired Antiguan citizeship full support in his fight against extradition to India after he was accused of defrauding banks in India…where are the investigative journalist to ask questions of Gaston Brown about Antigua’s CBI program….you and your type are just a bunch of rabid hypocrites.
@Point, calm down. One can take 50 years investigating an issue unless the respondent answers the question and provides the information requested then there won’t be much to present. What about this that you don’t get?
Skerritt said in his press (propaganda/indoctrination) conference that the opposition is trying to remove Labor from office. What the hell does he expect. In the adversarial system of democracy in a multiparty political system the opposition is trying to remove the governing party whilst the ruling party tries hard to remain in political power. That’s why there are campaigns and elections. Only those who don’t value democracy can go along with these shenanigans and be OK with this communists way of governance.
@Jonathan Y St Jean, you refer to what Skeritt said at his press conference as propaganda/indoctrination. If he had spoken to the reporters you would most likely classify his statements in the same way.
@Point, to hell with your “if”. The saying goes, if stands still in a barrel of beef”.
Silence speaks volumes, If this government is so innocent why are they not speaking?
The silence is eating you up, huh? Like when you throw a maypwi for someone and they completely ignore you, huh?
Well, toofay!!
Keep walking with your eyes closed will see how far you reach.
Unless we decide to get serious Skerrit will continue to make us look like Dom-in-a cans, and now the laughingstock of the world.
How can we not be laughed at when we have an AG that’s behaving like a hungry puppet , a college president that’s behaving like an unschooled idiot, a house speaker that sold his heart, soul and conscience to Skerrit worse than Judas that sold his to the devil? How can we be respected when our police commissioner and police department that’s there to protect Skerrit and as a result, have become friends of criminals and drug dealers and haters of people of good character , once highly respected church leaders that are nowsinging, dancing, applauding and preaching Satan’s doctrine? judges and magistrates that are worse than the Scribes and Pharisees, a media house where most are behaving like donkeys, cabinet ministers that are greedy , void of conscience and behaving like hyenas, schools that don’t teach history and good governance and good citizen????
rubbish 🗑
Ebeh wheh! That man powerful boy.
Don’t you know Satan has power? Satan is powerful you know. Unfortunately his power is to lead people to do wrong
I might be wrong but in my opinion I think Tony Harari is telling the world that Dom-in-a-cans are really dumb, doltish and silly for allowing Skerrit to sell their passports and can’t get him to truthfully answer a single question about their money. Can you imagine a business firm hiring a manager to run the business and they know the demand for their goods is very high, whether during category 5 hurricane or severe Tropical storm and yet although they can see the manager getting rich like hell and they know is from the sale of their products, yet the business is getting poorer and poorer to the point that they can’t even pay their employees; but somehow they can’t ask the manager about their money and when some ask him he curses them out and tells them is not their damn business etc? Where in the world would that happen if not in Dom-in-car, where the so called intellectuals lead the stupidity and most of the so called journalists are dommer and acting like hungry comedians?