Thursday, May 8th,2014 - There’s a man who calls in regularly to the radio talk shows to defend and promote Denzil Douglas.
Two days ago he tried to argue that those who oppose Douglas represent ‘massa’ and that Douglas is the defender of the masses.
In support of his argument, he claimed that the closure of the sugar industry and the establishment of the SIDF were necessary.
He was half-right. The sugar industry had to be closed, but there was absolutely no need for the SIDF. Yes, the contribution option in the economic citizenship package is a good thing, but setting up an entity outside of the scrutiny of the Parliament and the Director of Audit was not only unnecessary, it was wrong.
The gentleman wanted to make the point that the funds from the SIDF are being used to transform and develop the economy of this country, and to provide jobs, skills development and empowerment for thousands of people who would otherwise have been jobless and skills-less.
He didn’t seem to be at all bothered that despite the tens, even hundreds, of millions of dollars that have been coming in from the citizenship program, not a cent of it has been used to reduce the Government’s debt in general and to National Bank in particular, and that as a result, nearly 5,000 acres of the masses’ land have been mortgaged to that Bank and 1,200 acres of the land are being put up for sale to help pay down the debt to the Bank.
Nor is he bothered by the fact that four years ago there was a YES and now there’s PEP with twice as many people as had been on the YES, which means that his hero has failed to create the platform for sustainable economic activity and permanent jobs and empowerment for our people.
Let me, as an aside, tell you that it’s not only out-of-work people who are being engaged and paid by PEP. I know of a business place with three employees, two of whom have been employed there for about ten years and the third for thirty years. And PEP pays their wages. Why? Is that a corruption of the program?
Meanwhile, the gentleman has witnessed his hero sell out the land, and sell out the masses, yet he claims that his hero is the champion of the masses. Foolishness.
That kind of thinking, or, more accurately non-thinking, is one of the ugly legacies of slavery and colonialism which sought to create blind followers who would serve as wedges and buffers between the wealthy and the poor, and as agents of divisiveness and confusion among the poor. It should have no place in a modern, enlightened St. Kitts & Nevis. Alas, it’s still with us. Indeed, it’s exactly what the gentleman’s hero thrives on.
But the transformation, economic development, jobs and skills development could’ve happened if, instead of the money going into a Foundation, away from the glare of transparency and accountability, it was put into a Government account.
Contributors to the Fund could care less. Likewise for the international community.
And instead of just some of the money reaching the Treasury, all could’ve reached. And instead of the nonsense that’s taking place, the economic citizenship program could’ve been allowed to operate on a consistent and professional basis.
It’s a real tragedy that what is essentially a good program, built on a good concept, has been brought to this.
Allow me to cite some cases.
Under the law a person who makes a minimum investment of US$400,000.00 in an approved project is eligible to apply for citizenship. And an approved project is “a real estate development that has been approved by Cabinet as a qualified project for citizenship by investment”.
Is a single home or building considered as a development? No. Can either be an approved project under the law? No. But I can list a number of persons, starting with one of Douglas’ closest buddies, whose single properties have been granted that status.
Further, as we speak, I can point to at least three projects which have been granted special status to sell their units under US$400,000.00. Even as low as US$200,000.00. And the owners/ developers of all three are close to the inside, one a former Government official, and a second connected officially to the economic citizenship program.
Then there is a particular project which has as one of its development partners a company, the Tadbir Group, which is on a US Treasury Department and European Union prohibited list. When this was put to Douglas in a press conference his reaction was : ”So what?”
He’ll find out.
The Tadbir Group is made up of religious fundamentalists.
Now the law says that an application for citizenship by investment shall be considered only after all monies have been placed in an irrevocable escrow account with an authorized person, a registered trust company, or with an entity whose business is the provision of trust or custodial services, provided that the holders of such escrow accounts shall comply with guidelines published by the Citizenship by Investment Unit.
While the law might not expressly state that the escrow holder has to be within the Federation, that certainly has to be its intent. What sense would it make if it were otherwise?
Yet, with regard to that same project, I’m told that not one cent of the escrow money is in the Federation.
Who’s authorizing this?
Meanwhile, it’s alleged that there are persons who did not pass, or should not have passed, the due diligence test, yet efforts have been made to get passports for them.
Big governments are asking questions and watching things very closely, while small governments await with bated breath for our program to fall as a result of all of this foolishness so that their programs might gain market share.
Meanwhile, I’m also told that service providers in the Middle East are complaining that while they work hard to market the program, people can go to a certain office in Dubai and get citizenship for US$100,000.00.
Allegedly, the service providers are extremely fed up, and some of them have disconnected from the program and are headed elsewhere until St. Kitts & Nevis gets it act together. It seems that they too are praying for Unity in St. Kitts & Nevis.
If this information is correct, it’s throwing a spanner in the works for both the real estate and the contribution options, indeed, for the entire program. So who’s authorizing the sale of our citizenship for US$100,000.00? And if it’s happening, is greed the cause of it?
Finally, we are informed that a friendly Government has discovered some new and very damning information and that its operatives are whispering that it’ll be hell when this information is made public.
One aspect of it relates to citizenships and passports, another to bribes and kickbacks, and yet another to cocaine.
In their documents and conversations, the officials of that friendly government refer to a certain chap as “the Twenty Thousand Dollar Man”. Twenty Thousand US, of course!
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