Read Here: Nevis Premier Brantley raises question on CBI fair share

St Kitts and Nevis: Premier of Nevis and leader of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) – Mark Brantley has raised question on the Citizenship by Investment fair share by the government.

He took social media and stated, “By law, St Kitts manages the CBI programme on behalf of the entire Federation so that the CBI Unit processes even those applications that come from Nevis in St Kitts. All fees are paid in St Kitts.

During the Labour/NRP era, the people of Nevis were denied any of the CBI monies, and when any did come, they came as loans. The CCM campaigned vociferously that this was wrong, and Team Unity promised to the right this wrong. That is why the Charlestown Accord signed by Timothy Harris, Vance Amory and Shawn Richards on 14 December 2014 on the Charlestown steps of the High Court before God and man addressed the CBI monies specifically and said that CBI funds would under a Unity government be shared on a pro-rata population basis which means based on the available census St Kitts would get 75 percent and Nevis would get 25 percent.”

It is worth noting that since 2008 the CBI has brought roughly 5.3 billion dollars to Basseterre, and from that, the island of Nevis has received just under $400 million. Had the people of Nevis received their fair share, they would have received some 1.35 billion dollars. In other words, Nevis is owed nearly 1 billion dollars.

Brantley became Premier of Nevis in December 2017, and ever since then, he has been agitating for Nevis to receive what was committed to. Timothy Harris became PM on the back of the same Charlestown Accord that he refused to honour, notwithstanding that he signed it signalling his commitment to Nevisians getting what is rightfully theirs, he highlighted.

“It is a matter of some pleasure to me that Dr Harris has repeatedly said how much money Nevis has received from CBI throughout this public debate about Fair Share. He has NEVER once said how much money St Kitts kept for itself. And so the rhetoric uttered over and over by him and now taken up by his recently purchased cheerleaders in the NRP in Nevis is that Nevis received $400 million. They have now asked what Nevis did with the $400 million, to add insult to injury,” he added

No one has ever asked Dr Harris how much he has kept for St Kitts. If they did, he would have to admit that St Kitts kept just under $5 billion for itself, representing some 93 percent of the CBI monies, he further blamed.