PRIME MINISTER OF SAINT KITTS & NEVIS ADMITS IN PARLIAMENT THAT FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS OF CBI INCOME IS MISSING, AMID CALLS FOR HIS IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION AND CRIMINAL INDICTMENT

PM Terrance Drew

TERRANCE DREW, the Prime Minister of Saint Kitts & Nevis, ruefully admitted this week, during a meeting of his country's Parliament, the National Assembly, that his Labour government could not find USD$400m in Citizenship by Investment passport sales income. Drew's administration has failed to file audited annual reports, which are required by law, for the past three years, and he has reportedly now come under extreme pressure from the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) for that reason. Where is all this money?

The required annual CBI audits, which must disclose how many citizenships with passports have been sold, as against how much money actually came into the country, and therefore will show how much was illegally diverted abroad, were never conducted, all on the orders of PM Drew, who promised audits to the IMF but repeatedly blocked their completion. Calls for his resignation from Kittitians across the political spectrum have been heard on social media, but the local press, which is firmly under government de facto censorship and fiscal control, is by and large ignoring the situation. Expats are demanding that Drew be not only thrown out of office for malfeasance and misfeasance, but indicted by the Department of Public Prosecution.

Whether Drew will be indicted in the United States is an open question; its Department of Justice has not shied away in the past from charging sitting Caribbean national leaders for Federal crimes, and imprisoning them after conviction; Turks & Caicos Chief Minister NORMAN SAUNDERS and Panama's President GENERAL ANTONIO NORIEGA are evidence that their high offices did not protect them from the swift administration of justice, and let's not forget BVI Premier ANDREW FAHIE. Will Drew end up in the dock in an American courtroom? We will be watching.