St Kitts and Nevis: Brantley remembers progressive work during his tenure as foreign minister

St Kitts and Nevis: Premier of Nevis and former Foreign Minister at government of St Kitts and Nevis, Mark Brantley recently took social media and recalled the his progressive working during his tenure.

He stated that the record will show that since the Concerned Citizens Movement joined Team Unity in government in 2015, he was given the task of Foreign Minister. His job was rebuilding the country’s hitherto tarnished image regionally and internationally. He was tasked with rebuilding relations with old friends and finding new friends for the country. He and his friend navigated the world’s capitals to ensure that no hint of scandal diplomatically befell beloved country. An unprecedented number of scholarships for our young people to countries such as Morocco, Romania, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Chile, Austria, Serbia and India, were negotiated by the ministry.

“We led the fight for Caribbean nationals living in the UK during the Windrush scandal,” Premier Brantley stated.

The ministry set the goal of negotiating as many visa waiver agreements as possible to ensure that the St Kitts Nevis passport became the most powerful in all of CARICOM.

“Why was this important? Simple, with the Citizenship by Investment programme being so critical to the economy of St Kitts and Nevis, the power of our passport gives St Kitts and Nevis a more desirable product than our regional competitors and sets us well apart from the rest,” he acclaimed.

During this time, it is absolutely remarkable that St Kitts and Nevis entered into formal diplomatic relations with some 47 additional countries: Belarus, Bolivia, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Kenya, Kosovo, The Maldives, Mauritius, Mongolia, The Gambia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Turkmenistan, Brunei Darussalam, Ethiopia, Qatar, Moldova, Lao PDR, Armenia, Mozambique Gabon, Eswatini formerly Swaziland, Tajikistan, Kryzk Republic, San Marino, Togo, São Tomé and Principe, Bahrain, Serbia, Rwanda, Palestine, North Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cambodia, Honduras, Djibouti, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Sudan, Tuvalu and Uganda.

Even more remarkable is that the twin-island added some 32 countries where the citizens can travel visa-free and an additional two where our diplomats and officials can travel visa-free: Kosovo, Brazil, Ukraine, The Maldives, Indonesia, Seychelles, Bolivia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Zambia, Taiwan, Russia, India (diplomatic and official passports), Rwanda, The Gambia, Belarus, Montenegro, Ghana (diplomatic and official passports), Serbia (2019), San Marino, Togo, Albania Georgia, Paraguay, Marshall Islands, Uzbekistan, Eswatini (2020), North Macedonia, Burkina Faso Gabon, Palestine, São Tomé and Principe, Sudan and Tuvalu.

The meteoric rise of the popularity of the St Kitts Nevis CBI programme coincided precisely with the dramatic expansion of the network of countries that the passport takes to without a visa. Put differently, the work of the staff and Brantley himself ensured the success of CBI programme of St Kitts and Nevis.

“You can therefore understand how disturbing it must be for the people of Nevis that I, as one of their elected representatives, would have done so much to guarantee the success of the CBI programme only for Nevis to receive a paltry 7 percent of the returns while the Federal government kept 93 percent or some $5 Billion for itself,” he stated.

“This election is all about who will be willing to stand by, with and for the people of Nevis to ensure that we are respected, that we get our fair share and the full fruits of our citizenship,” Brantley added.