By: Staff Writer
December 1, 2023
The Opposition Leader in Dominica hits back at European critics of the country’s Citizenship by Investment programme arguing that over 60 percent of Dominica’s revenue depends on the receipts from the programme and that it should be better managed not scrapped altogether.
Dr Thomson Fontaine, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that despite having concerns about Dominica’s CBI and the negative press it has been getting in the past few weeks, he says that this could be solved with a “bit more transparency” in how the programme is managed.
It was revealed in the media that after a detailed examination of Dominica’s golden passports, thousands of individuals including a former Afghan spymaster, a Turkish millionaire convicted of fraud and a former Libyan colonel under Muammar Gaddafi, received passports from the country.
The startling calibre of individuals that have received passports has raised the eyebrows of regulators in Europe, prompting the European Commission to call for or an overhaul of regulations surrounding so-called golden passports whose holders are allowed visa-free access to the EU. In doing so, the Commission revealed that just five Caribbean states had sold 88,000 passports between them. Of those, tiny Dominica had sold 34,500, nearly one half of them.
Dr Fontaine said: “The problem is that when that a program like that is scrapped, we talking about programme upon which the country relies heavily for Dominica, you talking about 50 percent to 60 percent of government’s revenues.
“I know it’s probably a similar number for St Kitts and Nevis. So scrapping the programme now will certainly have a very devastating impact on the country’s economy.”
The former International Monetary Fund economist, acknowledging that unscrupulous characters have been obtaining Domincan passports under the CBI, said that there is no doubt that the country’s regime needs to “be more diligent in screening applicants,” particularly in the age of terrorism. “It has been a free for all and people have been able to exploit it.”
Outside of the CBI revenues, Dominica has very little else to depend on. Its agricultural sector has been decimated and its tourism sector is small in comparison to other Caribbean countries.
The EU maintains, however, these CBI programmes can threaten “the public policy or internal security of the Member States, including those related to infiltration of organized crime, money-laundering, tax evasion and corruption.” As such, the EC would like to make the visa suspension mechanism easier to trigger.