{"id":52531,"date":"2012-01-09T12:14:38","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T16:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=52531"},"modified":"2012-01-09T15:39:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T19:39:21","slug":"patriots-want-sale-of-passports-halted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/news\/politics\/patriots-want-sale-of-passports-halted\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Patriots&#8217; want sale of passports halted"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_52545\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52545\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/patriots1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-52545 \" title=\"patriots1\" src=\"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/patriots1-300x190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/patriots1-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/patriots1-150x95.jpg 150w, https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/patriots1.jpg 972w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52545\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left:Vaugn Martin, Thompson Fontaine, Gabriel Christian, Dr. Finn, Amb. Crispin Gregoire and Glen Polydore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Overseas-based activists opposed to Dominica\u2019s economic citizenship programme have called for an end to the sale of Dominica passports, alleging that it is being abused by leading government officials including Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit for personal gain.<\/p>\n<p>The allegations include claims that Dominican passports have found their way into unscrupulous hands including that of a notorious Indian national.<\/p>\n<p>Former Dominican ambassador to the United States Crispin Gregoire was among a group of young Dominican intellectuals who held a news conference on the matter on a Washington-based Radio Station on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are too many questions about the economic citizenship programme and I think the time has come for us to end that programme,\u201d Gregoire, a former key diplomat of the Skerrit administration, said.<\/p>\n<p>He also called for the government \u201cto come clean on all its diplomatic appointments\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Gregoire\u00a0 and others including former IMF Economist Dr Thompson Fontaine and lawyer\/author Gabriel Christian have called for a commission of inquiry into the \u201cpassport scandal\u201d and other alleged irregularities involving the Roosevelt Skerrit administration.<\/p>\n<p>They have denied that their efforts in that regard are aimed at mischief making and destroying Dominica\u2019s name overseas.<\/p>\n<p>The groups say their love for Dominica is what is spurring them on to confront a Skerrit administration they insist is corruption-plagued.<\/p>\n<p>The Dominica Labour Party\u2019s Public Relations Officer Dr Philbert Aaron has dismissed the initiative by this group of US-based Dominicans as an attempt to internationalise a local politically motivated bid to unseat an otherwise popular administration.<\/p>\n<p>Skerrit\u2019s DLP won 18 of the 21 seats in the December 18\u00a0 2009 elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overseas-based activists opposed to Dominica\u2019s economic citizenship programme have called for an end to the sale of Dominica passports, alleging that it is being abused by leading government officials including Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit for personal gain. The allegations include&#8230;","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":52545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Patriots&#039; want sale of passports halted - Dominica News Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/news\/politics\/patriots-want-sale-of-passports-halted\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Patriots&#039; want sale of passports halted - Dominica News Online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Overseas-based activists opposed to Dominica\u2019s economic citizenship programme have called for an end to the sale of Dominica passports, alleging that it is being abused by leading government officials including Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit for personal gain. 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