EXCERPT from Associates Times.
“The United Kingdom government is poised to suspend the visa-free waiver agreement with Dominica this July, therefore, requiring its nationals to apply for a visa for travel to the UK. Following this, the UK plans to annul the visa-free agreement with St Lucia in August and subsequently with Grenada in September. In a similar vein, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and St Kitts and Nevis will face the same action in October, November, and December respectively.
The step has come into effect as the first step of the launch of the Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) and it is expected that in December 2023, the UK government would announce these countries under ETA.
As per the reports, the visa-waiver agreement with Caribbean nationals offering Citizenship by Investment Programme (CIP) will be sequentially suspended in phases. The visa-free travel agreements with other OECS or additional Caribbean nations are likely to be suspended in coming months.” End
The CIP program was lucrative for the citizens purchasing same based on the fact that clients becoming citizens got a free ride into countries that genuinely wished to make life easier for small island states/economies, but unfortunately, the islands saw it as a cash cow not realizing that the day of reckoning will come. Dominica and St Kitts benefitted enormously from the program as they started many years ago, but the question remains, how will they manage their present cash flow when sales plummet based on the decision taken by the UK government knowing that the EU is likely to follow suit.
Dominica for instance is committed to China to construct an entirely new airport at a cost of EC $1 billion from CIP earnings. What will be the reaction of the Dominica government if this revenue no longer exists? Here at home the opposition leader during his term of office was extremely cautious with the CIP earnings and carefully separated those funds from the consolidated funds, but on the assumption of government by the SLP administration, they wasted no time in changing the rules in order that the CIP funds can be blended into the consolidated funds.
This was a bad move as this gave a false picture of the nation’s operations. The Opposition Leader recently questioned the movement of some $91 million of CIP funds and to date no response has been given. In the coming weeks we expect to learn much more from this new development and hopefully the impact may not be as serious as anticipated.