OPPOSITION IN SAINT VINCENT & THE GRENADINES FAVORS ESTABLISHING A CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT PROGRAM IF ELECTED IN 2025; IS THAT WISE?

Although it is a full year until national elections in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the country's Opposition leaders are making the establishment of Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) passport sales programs the centerpiece of their election campaign. As the current SVG government, most notably its Prime Minister, has been vehemently against such a scheme, the response of the people to that issue will most likely generate the outcome of the next election in November 2025.

While the Opposition has extensively detailed the protective measures that it intends to install in such a program, should it be victorious, the fact that each and every one of the five East Caribbean states that offer such schemes have suffered from systemic corruption, unhealthy dependence upon the fees generated, their inability to control sales agents abroad, the granting of passports to unsuitable ( e.g. criminal) applicants, and many more political, social and economic problems than can be summarized here. The country's PM is a wise man; he has seen how lucrative CBI programs elsewhere have the propensity to corrupt government at its very core, and encourage dangerous foreign actors. The MSR Media RICO lawsuit is only one example of what can, and will, go wrong, with two programs that have been infected with greed and corruption (St. Kitts and St. Lucia), and refuse to engage in meaningful reform.

We humbly suggest that the voters of Saint Vincent choose wisdom over abject greed and promises of billions of dollars in potential revenue to their government. There are, at present, no clean programs, and unless that actually happens, they should not join the chaos, please. Of course, given the rapid movement in the East Caribbean this year to expose the rampant corruption, the situation a year hence may be radically different than it is today. Will some EC programs be terminated? Will others then be reformed, after bad actors are indicted? The future of CBI is not by any means assured; let Saint Vincent wait and see what happens in 2025.