Revamp! uproot corruption from CBI says Allen Chastanet

Evidence is showing that Citizenship by Investment (CBI), or Citizenship and Investment Programmes (CIP) in the region are being run by “bad actors”, said a leading opposition figure in Saint Lucia.

There is also corruption, and those administering these programmes have failed to follow the structures they ought to, but have not moved swiftly to address the damaging practices, said Allen Chastanet, Saint Lucian businessman and politician who served as Prime Minister of Saint Lucia from 2016 to 2021.

Speaking on June, 18,2025 at a New Democratic Party (NDP) press conference, Chastanet, Leader of the Opposition in Saint Lucia, and the political leader of the United Workers Party, said while he is not against CBI, he thinks the programmes in the region need to be revamped, and the countries involved should look into running CBI programmes out of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Secretariat, instead of individually.

“Two major concerns are- one is money laundering,” the Saint Lucian opposition politician said.

“So, the fact is, that there has been proof that’s been provided out there- Saint Kitts has done it, Dominica, Grenada has done it- that persons are underpaying the statute amount for the citizenship.

“And once you do that, it means that the monies of the programmes are now all corrupted. It becomes an AML (anti-money laundering) issue, because the monies are going through the correspondent banks in the US,” he outlined.
“…and two- we would have seen in recent times, several high-profile criminals that have been arrested, either in the UK, in Europe, or in the US, and they had secondary passports from OECS countries- Dominica and St Kitts in particular…”, Chastanet said at the press conference.

The CBI programme is currently a hot political topic in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). It is the main plank on which the NDP is staking its economic fortunes if elected to office; while the governing Unity Labour Party (ULP) is categorically opposed to the programme.

Chastanet said what has been happening, is “a race to the bottom” by countries, who, in order to get more sales, are finding shortcuts. Meanwhile, the US State Department has put together a watch list of countries which have the programme, namely, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia.

“All these are our own making. In the case of Dominica, Dominica has lost its visa free access to the UK…,” Chastanet said, while noting that these red flags should have been sufficient to cause governments to reform their programmes, but not all of them have.

“The fact is that there is evidence to show that these programmes have been running in this region with bad actors. They have been corrupt, and they have not followed the government structures that they ought to have followed, and our governments have not reacted sufficiently in working out those bad practices,” Chastanet added. He said if his party is re-elected he intends to harmonize CIP under one programme to stop the level of competition among the countries.

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