Caribbean countries junk program allowing Russians to buy citizenship

Several Caribbean countries are cancelling programs by making use of which peple from Russia and Belarus could buy citizenships for large sums, said AFP. These measures are being taken as a step to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine.

The Caribbean countries that are taking these steps are Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda.

Under these Citizenship by investment programs (CBI) people can obtain passports by paying the government at least $100,000 or by investing around $200,000 in government-run real estate development projects.

On the tiny island of Dominica in the eastern Caribbean, for instance, in an email to officials tasked with recruiting rich investors from the coordinator of the program, Emmanuel Nanthan, said scheme is suspended effective immediately "in light of the current conflict in Ukraine" but also to preserve "the credibility" of the program.

In Saint Lucia, "our banking system no longer allows transfers of funds from Russia," the CBI service there said.

"However we will deal with fund transfer requests from bank accounts outside Russia," it added.

Charmaine Donovan, who runs the CBI service in Antigua and Barbuda, said it has been suspended there, too, for people from Russia and its ally Belarus.
"It is a matter of remaining consistent with the foreign policy position of Antigua and Barbuda," said Donovan.

Caribbean island states were among 141 UN member countries that have condemned the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbor Ukraine starting on February 24.

The regional grouping called the Caribbean Community (Caricom) met this month in Belize and also condemned the attack unanimously, but it did not approve any joint sanctions, leaving this up to individual members.

In 2020 the prime minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, said the CBI program there had brought in the equivalent of $440 million in revenue.
He said the money was used to pay off debt but also to build housing that is more resistant to extreme weather stemming from climate change.

(With inputs from agencies)