St. Kitts & Nevis Citizenship Program
St. Kitts and Nevis’ new Team Unity coalition government has committed to a rationalization and restructuring of the Citizenship by Investment Program, and will conduct a comprehensive audit of the CBI within three months.
CBI applications will continue to be processed throughout the audit, with over 100 applications already approved by the new government, though critics say the audit should have been conducted before the applications were approved.
However, the ruling government says there was no need to suspend the program while conducting the audit, and the recently approved applications were already in the system and were made to go through strict due diligence processes.
The government has received several recommendations for the revamping of its citizenship by investment program, one of which is to do more than what is expected by allied countries who have expressed their concern about the security checks required by the program. Retired statistician and social commentator Sylvine Henry has suggested that the government should prioritize the passing of legislation that will regulate the citizenship program more tightly.
As an opposition party, the Unity alliance had always been critical of the way CBI was run by the government, and pushed for the rationalizing and restructuring of the CBI as well as a thorough audit of the program and the Sugar Industry Diversification Fund. Since coming to power, the party has vowed to improve how the SIDF is managed, and has committed to greater transparency and accountability in the operations of the foundation.
Source: Winnfm