BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AS part of the Government’s thrust to reform the Federation’s Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme, developments originated from it would be placed under the microscope to ensure that what is being delivered to investors meets the quality assurance standards.
Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris gave media representatives a progress report on the CBI reform process during his monthly press conference last week and informed that concerns were received regarding the quality of developments in which individuals could invest.
He said developers have however been duly advised that their projects would be placed under scrutiny.
“The third leg of the reform agenda would include a revisit of quality assurance mechanisms. There has been talk in the marketplace about the quality of some buildings and infrastructure that are being put up by participants in the programme. And we have already advised the developers that where they can enhance the quality they should do so now. So under that we would be looking at the quality of infrastructure.
“We would be looking at monitoring of the compliance with approved drawings and plans and, of course, under quality mechanisms. We will also be increasing the number of due diligence providers available to the CBI Programme.”
The multi-prong reform agenda, the Prime Minister explained, also involves close examination of the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation’s (SIDF) governance model.
“We continue our efforts in relation to the Citizenship by Investment Programme and our reform agenda covers a number of areas. For example, institutional or organizational reform and under that I can report that we are revisiting the governance model for the SIDF. We are looking at the staff complement at the CIU Unit that is the Citizenship by Investment Unit and of course, we have professional people who are undertaking those staff reviews and assessment
“We did not want to do it ourselves, we opted for the better way to have professional engagement, professional assessment of the staff quality and the staff needs of a very, very important unit. The institutional reform will also encapsulate a new ICT management system. I am advised by the representative of IPSAR that this new system is already in its final phase of testing before wide use of it is being made by all the relevant stakeholders.”
A legislative component is subsumed in the reform agenda, which would provide for the proscribing of “participation from certain nationalities with respect to the CBI Programme” and also an audit of it.
PM Harris said the audit is of utmost importance as there is need for accurate and reliable information, which could be presented to the local populace as well as prospective investors.
“It has really been a maze going through and meandering attempting to find reliable data, and therefore we will not want to come to the public with information which is unreliable…
“Equally for our international stakeholder groups is a matter of a look back, an audit of all that has happened with respect to the programme. And many in the public marketplace from time to time ask for information; information which we cannot reliably provide. A look back is intended to provide an enhanced quality information data set which we can bring to the public. Look back will help us to bring greater reliability to information! For example, regarding how many citizenships were processed by the former Administration.”
