LAST month Investment Minister Ernest Hilaire tabled in parliament the 2022/2023 Annual Report of the Citizenship by Investment Programme (CIP) admitting that the Citizenship by Investment Act No.14 of 2015, Section 24 was breached.
Section 24 of the Act mandates that the Minister shall lay the Report in parliament no later than three months after receiving the Report from the CIP Board. Further, the Board shall submit to the Minister the Report no later than three months after the end of a financial year.
In other words, the Report must be tabled within six months of the end of the financial year of the CIP. The Report Mr. Hilaire tabled in parliament was more than a year old. We acknowledge the Minister’s apology for the lateness of the Report, however, we sensed that were it not for pressure from various quarters of the society for clarity on certain subjects within the purview of the CIP, that report would not have been tabled at the time it was.
Mr Hilaire can deny this if he chooses, but in the past three months, the Saint Lucia programme has been under heavy scrutiny, locally, regionally and internationally. Is the timing of the tabling of the Report coincidence, happenstance, or the result of ‘enemy’ action (with apologies to Ian Fleming)?
Parliamentarians, Ministers, Boards of Statutory Organisations etc., must endeavour at all times to meet their statutory obligations. Too often have we seen boards of organizations and agencies disregard their obligations, meaning they have not submitted their annual reports and other time-prescribed obligations at the time mandated by law. This is the norm for several statutory bodies in the country. Lack of accountability seems to be a part of the culture of many of our public institutions.
Moving forward we hope to see CIP Annual Reports tabled in parliament at the time prescribed by the Citizenship by Investment Act.
We can only speculate that the 2023/2024 Report, which was statutorily due to be laid before parliament on 31st October 2024, will not be as late as the 2022/2023 Report.
We admit that while the report was informative in several ways it placed the citizens at a disadvantage in that the information in it is more than a year old. All the good and the not-so-good portrayed in the 2022/2023 Annual Report hardly amounts to much when we do not know the current state of the CIP.
We want to know the current revenue of the CIP. Whether there was growth or not in the year just past. Was there growth in shareholder equity? How many individuals are presently holding CIP passports from Saint Lucia? How much of a surplus did the CIP end the 2023/2024 year with? After all, it was the Minister who said the 2022/2023 year ended with a $22.8 million surplus.
We are deep into the 2024/2025 financial year yet we know nothing about the latest happenings within our CIP. And for that, we hold Minister Hilaire responsible. This is your responsibility Mr Minister as directed by the Citizenship by Investment Act No. 14 of 2015. That ball cannot be passed over to someone else.
Government accountability is expected regarding the CIP. And by government, we are not implying only the present administration. Whichever political party makes up the government in the future we expect accountability.
The same thing applies to the opposition of the day. There is a misconception within the populace that the opposition does not make up the government and therefore can say and do whatever it pleases. This is not true. The opposition, which sits in both chambers of parliament, is part and parcel of the Government of Saint Lucia. It too has a role to play in the governance of this country and as such the same high standards expected of the government are expected of the opposition even if only to hold the government transparently accountable.
Many Saint Lucians would like the CIP scrapped. To them, it is selling one’s birthright for money. Be that as it may, the fact is that the CIP is here and brings in an income Saint Lucia needs, irrespective of who holds the reins of power. And, therefore, it is on this basis that politicians on both sides of the political spectrum must refrain from misleading the people, whether by silence, deceit or simply, obfuscation when they speak about the CIP.