ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC) – Dominica’s Opposition United Workers Party (UWP) says it is taking legal action against the government over the controversial Citizenship by Investment Programme (CBI).
Under the CBI, foreign investors are provided with citizenship of the island in return for making substantial investments in the socio-economic development of Dominica.
Attorney General Levi Peter told the state-owned DBS radio that he would respond to the matter as soon as documentation from the court is available.
Flanked by several people, including the former attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago, Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan, UWP president, Lennox Linton, told a news conference that the decision to pursue the legal action was not an easy undertaking.
“Deciding to take legal action against the government of the state is never easy, especially for patriotic organizations driven first and foremost, by the best interest of the state,” said Linton, a former Opposition leader.
“That is why having brought the injustice to public attention years ago, we advocated long and we advocated hard inside and outside of Parliament for remedial action in the public’s interest. We advocated for obedience to the Constitution and the rule of law, honesty, transparency, and accountability in the operations of the CBI programme.
“All we wanted to do was to protect the integrity of the programme and to ensure that the lofty national development goals for which it came into existence were fulfilled”.
Linton told reporters that “this has been quite a journey for us in the past five years having decided that we were going to go to court with this.
“We have received opinions and second opinions, and we have spoken to several lawyers. We have over time asked ourselves whether we should go forward with this because after all no institution wants to sue their government, but we came to the point where we decided that we had to move forward with this,” he added.
For his part, Ramlogan told reporters his firm has been asked to “assist with this historic, groundbreaking, and landmark case in the public’s interest”.
He said the CBI has generated a significant amount of funds that are meant to be spent for the benefit of the public in Dominica.
“The cardinal principles upon which a democracy is based include…public accountability…transparency in public life and …good public administration.
“Without those hallmark principles being observed then you do not have a democracy. So we have taken a look at it. We see this as a case that is important for the Caribbean region as a whole because it will establish some significant constitutional boundaries as it relates to the government’s duty to account to the people through the Parliament”.
Ramlogan said the intention is to ask the government to disclose a copy of the agreement for the CBI programme between the government and its agents.
“…we intend to ask to see the terms and conditions of that contract because the case is constructed based on the Dominican constitution and on the principle that all monies and revenues earned by the government are meant to be paid into the Consolidated Fund, which is subject to parliamentary scrutiny and approval for any form of expenditure,” Ramlogan added.
Apart from Dominica, the other islands with a similar CBI programme are Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis, and St Lucia.