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St. Lucia considers implementing economic citizenship program
St Lucia is giving consideration to an economic citizenship program. St. Lucia’s Prime Minister Kenny Anthony said the introduction of a citizenship by investment program would be an effort to boost inward investment.
Describing the current economic climate as “severe, debilitating and oppressive,” Anthony, who is preparing to present the 2014/15 national budget, said St. Lucia may well have to look at initiatives that it once “frowned upon.”
“This is a difficult environment perhaps calling for different responses,” he said.
“I think we cannot close our eyes because it’s an option we may have to consider and in so doing we may have to look at the experiences of other countries,” Anthony told reporters.
He said St. Lucia as a country has “huge problems on our hands,” stating that what was rejected previously will now have to be re-examined.
The news that St. Lucia is considering an economic citizenship program, which grants citizenship to individuals who invest money in a country’s development, prompted a vigorous response from Therold Prudent, the leader of the Lucian People’s Movement (LPM).
“The decision of the government of St. Lucia to entertain the idea of economic citizenship is another glaring example of how desperate it has become for foreign money,” Prudent said.
According to Prudent, at this point, it really does not matter who is offering the money, or what the ramifications are for the country.
“How do you even begin a debate on economic citizenship when you cannot even control criminal activities in your own nation? Opening the door to a form of investment that the nation does not have the ability to regulate would no doubt turn St. Lucia into a haven for money launderers and international criminals,” he said.
Prudent said it is also very hypocritical of the government of St. Lucia to entertain the concept of economic citizenship to total strangers, when it has done everything in its power to undermine the contribution of its own citizens.
“How can you contemplate a new form of economic colonialism, while denying St. Lucian citizens their rights to form political organizations, and participate without harassment in the economic and political development of the country? St. Lucia belongs to the people of St. Lucia, and not to a single political entity, which believes it can infringe at will the rights of its people, while parceling the country out to strangers in exchange for blood money,” he concluded.
Such citizenship by investment programs are actively promoted by at least 4 other Caribbean countries including: Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and St Kitts & Nevis.
Source: Caribbean News Now