Elesha George, Author at Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network

Elesha George

Elesha George is Dominican-born journalist with more than 9 years’ experience in television broadcasting, radio and newspaper publication. On occasion she works as a talk show host and is currently the Newsroom Supervisor and Social Media Manager at News Co Limited, Antigua. She specializes in investigative and environment reporting and in the past year has built and launched her own website dedicated to supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Eastern Caribbean.

Caribbean CBIs

Dominica

Unanswered Questions Undermine Credibility

By

Richie Ferrol, Researcher and

Elesha George | May 20, 2022

The Commonwealth of Dominica is one of five countries in the Eastern Caribbean that allows persons born outside of the state to obtain a passport for a one-time fee or real estate investment through its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme. The programme began in 1991 to support areas like tourism, manufacturing, low-cost housing, infrastructure, agriculture, and healthcare. The Caribbean Investigative Journalist Network (CIJN) found that Dominica is heavily dependent on the CBI programme and that more than half of the government’s projected growth in revenue for the fiscal year 2021/2022 is expected to be financed by the CBI. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit in his latest budget address declared that CBI will contribute 58% percent of Dominica’s capital budget for the Public Sector Investment Programme. The Public gets a glimpse of some of the CBI earnings during Dominica’s annual National Budget presentation.

This table depicts the reported contributions for CBI’s Economic Diversification Fund (EDF) over the last five years:

CBI Total Yearly Revenue for the Period 2017-2022

YearCBI Revenue in USD2017-2018$148,146,7762018-2019$83,086,5172019-2020$67,538,9022020-2021$109,841,9092021-2022$171,612,697Figure 1.1 (This figure does not include monies collected under the real estate option of the CBI)

Between 2017 to 2022, the country collected more than USD$580M from CBI applications and investments from its Economic Diversification Fund – one of two options to gain citizenship via the programme.

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