ST. LUCIA JOINS ANTIGUA IN CREATING A LOOPHOLE IN THE MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT ON CBI PASSPORTS

As we fully expected, once one East Caribbean CBI state declared that there would be a thirty-day delay in enforcing the uniform minimum $200,000 investment requirement contained in the Memorandum of Agreement signed back in March, others chose to follow that dIlatory path. St Lucia's CIU has announced it will also give its passport vendors & consultancies the month of July to process what it claims are "pending" applications.

Remember, the Memorandum was issued back in March, and there is no excuse for all this last-minute delay, confirming Bad Faith on the part of the beleaguered St. Lucia Government, who is, like Antigua, not offering any reason other than legislative process. If this was not an absolute priority, given threats by the UK and EU to drop the hammer on visa-free access without true and effective reform, I don't know what is. Senior officials, already seen to publicly exhibit fear and loathing about transparency, continue to drag their heels on CBI,

While we completely understand that filed but not yet processed CBI economic citizenship applications should receive some sort of consideration, St. Lucia has declared that unfiled applications would be honored so long as the CBI consultants advise that they have the client's deposits on hand. In our humble opinion, such is a recipe for disaster, for far flung CBI vendors, who are generally not licensed professionals, but only sales agents working on commission need only report their possession of deposits, which cannot be independently verified by St. Lucia or any third party.

One last delaying tactic we have observed. St. Lucia officials announced that they are closing government forthwith, as a Tropical Storm approaches the Caribbean, A direct hit by hurricane force winds appears highly unlikely for the island nation, and we therefore the question; is this but another dilatory move, to avoid answering how many CBI passport files were transferred to Caribbean Galaxy (7,000 perhaps) , and how long will the government delay in reopening the CIU after the storm passes? Bad Faith appears to be the order of the day in St. Lucia.