For a small Caribbean federation, St. Kitts and Nevis has cast a giant’s shadow over the global investment migration industry. In 1984, it became the first country in the world to introduce a citizenship by investment programme, long before “CBI” became a business model marketed across continents. Over four decades, this visionary programme helped stabilise public finances, fund capital projects, and position the country as a quiet but sophisticated financial innovator.
By the late 2010s, the numbers told a remarkable story. A Caribbean Development Bank review noted that in 2019 alone, CBI receipts were estimated at around EC $500 million, helping to push the overall fiscal surplus to more than 10 percent of GDP. This performance rested on foundations laid under the former administration of Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas, when official reports from Basseterre highlighted that more than half a billion dollars had been “pumped into several projects” through the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation, the precursor mechanism heavily financed by CBI inflows.
This was the heyday — CBI as a premium sovereign instrument, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars annually to an economy of roughly 51,000 people.
That success did not survive the policy choices of the Harris administration. A programme carefully built as high-value and tightly controlled was progressively cheapened. Discount pricing, opaque allocations, and aggressive developer deals culminated in one emblematic decision that many now view as the breaking point: the Estridge prison project.
The Hurricane Relief Fund: The Beginning of Decline
The slide began with pricing.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, the Harris government launched the Hurricane Relief Fund in 2017 as a special contribution option under the CBI programme. For the first time, a family of up to four could obtain citizenship for a single donation of US $150,000 — a price international agents openly described as “the most affordable economic citizenship programme in the Caribbean.” Soon after, the Sustainable Growth Fund entrenched the shift, fixing US $150,000 for single applicants and US $195,000 for a family of four.
The Harris government defended these measures as emergency financing. But in capital markets, price signals meaning. Citizenship that had previously required higher contributions was suddenly being marketed at a deep and seemingly permanent discount. St. Kitts and Nevis began sliding in global perception from premium to bargain-tier CBI.
The Prison Project: 5,500 Shares and a System That Snapped
If the Hurricane Relief Fund opened the door to discount culture, the prison project blew it off its hinges.
The scheme, centred on a new correctional facility at Estridge, was advanced under the Alternative Investment Option. Caribbean Galaxy, a Chinese-linked developer already involved in CBI-funded projects such as the Ramada resort, was awarded the contract to build the national prison in exchange for a large block of CBI “shares” — units allowing applicants to be put forward for citizenship.
The scale of those shares only became fully visible later. In a 2024 civil RICO lawsuit filed in the United States, film company MSR Media alleged that Caribbean Galaxy received 5,500 shares linked to the development — representing thousands of passports. The same filing claimed the statutory price per share was US $175,000 but alleged that Galaxy sold allocations at discounts of 60 percent or more — “priced at US $75,000 or significantly less.”
If proven, the implications are stark. A programme premised on state-controlled pricing had effectively outsourced both pricing and sales to a private developer. Legal minimums were allegedly being undercut, depriving the Treasury of revenue properly belonging to the people and destabilising the programme’s pricing architecture.
Nevis’ Premier Mark Brantley — once a senior figure in Harris’ Cabinet before his CCM and PAM withdrew and collapsed the coalition — later voiced what critics believed was long-standing frustration within government. On his “On the Mark” talk show in November 2023, he said passports were being sold “like sugar,” arguing that projects which might justify 500 units were being issued four or five thousand, precisely because they were being traded below lawful price.
The prison project did not just raise ethical questions — it had concrete consequences. First, it flooded the CBI pipeline: 5,500 shares, if fully processed, could result in tens of thousands of citizenships being granted. Second, it placed other developers and government revenue at a disadvantage — anyone paying the lawful rate was effectively subsidising those buying in at heavily cut prices. Third, it undermined external confidence. By 2024 the European Union was flagging unusually high approval numbers and specifically those resulting from investment in the prison project — deepening concerns about the programme’s oversight.
What had once been lauded as a model of innovative public finance had begun to look, for critics at home and abroad, like a case study in how not to administer citizenship.
From Half a Billion to Structural Decline
The fiscal consequences have been severe.
The Caribbean Development Bank confirmed around EC $500 million in CBI revenue in 2019 alone, generating large surpluses, but more recent assessments show a dramatic deterioration. In its 2025 Article IV report, the IMF noted that CBI receipts, which once accounted for 23–25 percent of GDP, had fallen to about 8 percent of GDP in 2024 — a collapse that converted fiscal surpluses into tight constraints.
The IMF now describes CBI revenues as “structurally lower,” warning of a weaker fiscal outlook and urging diversification of the tax base. Put simply, the prison project, compounded by discounting in the name of competitiveness, did not just bruise the CBI’s reputation — it turned St. Kitts and Nevis’ most reliable revenue engine into a potential liability.
International Scrutiny and the Six Principles
Against that backdrop, global attention intensified. The European Union had long expressed concerns over “citizenship for sale” models, while the United Kingdom’s 2023 suspension of visa-free access for Dominica was widely read as a warning to the region.
In February 2023, the five Eastern Caribbean CBI states — Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia — met United States officials in Basseterre. The outcome was the Six Principles: shared commitments on applicant denials, mandatory interviews, FIU involvement, independent audits, passport retrieval protocols, and a common stance on applications from Russia and Belarus. While influenced by external dialogue, these principles provided a framework for internal discipline — essential for St. Kitts and Nevis as it began repairing the damage inherited from Dr. Harris.
Drew’s Reset: From Damage Control to Structural Reform
When Dr. Terrance Drew assumed office in 2022, he inherited a CBI programme still generating revenue but weighed down by lawsuits, allegations of underselling, and a debased pricing culture.
His administration first acknowledged the problem. In an official May 2024 release titled Government Aware of Lawsuits Alleging CBI Underselling, Highlights Swift and Decisive Reforms, the government confirmed awareness of litigation and underscored reforms already underway.
Those reforms have been sweeping. The Drew government dismantled discount mechanisms such as the Hurricane Relief Fund and replaced them with the Sustainable Island State Contribution — US $250,000 for a single applicant, with higher thresholds for families and real estate — deliberately repositioning citizenship as high-value. Due diligence was strengthened, including mandatory applicant interviews from July 2023, aligning St. Kitts and Nevis with the Six Principles. The administration has also subjected the prison project to scrutiny, commissioning due diligence on applications stemming from it and reviewing the agreement and its allocated shares.
Drew’s messaging seeks to reclaim legitimacy: he consistently frames CBI as a tool for national transformation under the Sustainable Island State agenda — tied to healthcare, food security, energy and digital infrastructure — rather than a fiscal stopgap.
ECCIRA: From National Repair to Regional Oversight
Perhaps the most consequential development lies at the regional level.
In September 2025, the Caribbean nations with CBI programmes announced that thier governments would legislate the creation of the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority (ECCIRA) by October 2025. Draft legislation issued by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank describes ECCIRA as a supranational regulator tasked with overseeing CBI activity in participating states, enforcing common standards, and ensuring compliance.
ECCIRA is intended to stand above national CBI units — overseeing due diligence, protecting minimum pricing, and stepping in wherever a programme risks destabilising the region. For St. Kitts and Nevis, the original architect of citizenship by investment and now a vocal reform advocate, its involvement in designing this regulator is telling. It amounts to an admission that past excesses — including its own — cannot be allowed to recur, and reflects a determination to safeguard the wider Caribbean industry from the vulnerabilities of the past.
Harris vs Drew: The Hole and the Climb
The contrast between Harris and Drew is stark.
Harris presided over the period in which a world-leading CBI system was allowed to drift into discount-driven, developer-influenced territory.
Drew inherited the consequences: structurally depressed revenues, heightened scrutiny, and litigation dragging the nation’s reputation into foreign courts. His administration’s task is not merely to halt decline but to rebuild credibility in a system many investors now distrust.
Raising prices, banning underselling, strengthening due diligence, embracing the Six Principles, and delivering ECCIRA are essential moves — but they mark only the beginning. If ECCIRA is given teeth and reform discipline is sustained, the system may be stabilised beyond the lifespan of any one administration.
What is clear is that St. Kitts and Nevis stands again at a crossroads. One path leads back to the temptations of easy money and political convenience; the other toward proving that the country that invented CBI can also demonstrate how to run it properly.
The prison project may have been the straw that broke the programme’s back. Whether the Drew administration and its regional partners can now reset the spine will determine not only the future of the region’s CBI programmes, but the credibility of St. Kitts and Nevis’ wider claim to building a genuinely sustainable island state.
Stay informed with the latest news and updates from SKN Source! Click here to join our WhatsApp channel and get updates straight to your mobile. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for more stories and insights!
Be the first to comment on "At the Crossroads: St. Kitts & Nevis Confronts the Costs of Harris’ CBI Legacy — and Embraces Drew’s Chance to Reset"