Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit has urged Do­mini­cans to stand up in sup­port of the Cit­i­zen­ship by In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (CBI), which he says makes a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try.

Sker­rit, who was re-elect­ed un­op­posed as the leader of the rul­ing Do­mini­ca Labour Par­ty (DLP) on Sun­day, told a Del­e­gates’ Con­fer­ence in Vielle Case on the north coast that it is nec­es­sary to sup­port the pro­gramme.

Un­der the CBI, for­eign in­vestors are grant­ed cit­i­zen­ship of Do­mini­ca in re­turn for mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try.

Sker­rit said that the op­po­si­tion par­ties here were stag­ing a war against the pro­gramme, in­clud­ing re­cent court ac­tion.

“The pro­gramme has been and re­mains a cor­ner­stone of Do­mini­ca’s de­vel­op­ment. What we are see­ing is a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt by the op­po­si­tion to cre­ate dis­trac­tion to stir up fear where none is war­rant­ed,” Sker­rit told the con­ven­tion which was al­so at­tend­ed and ad­dressed by the Prime Min­is­ters of Grena­da Dick­on Mitchell and Phillip J Pierre of St. Lu­cia.

All three coun­tries have CBI pro­grammes and Sker­rit said the ac­tions of the op­po­si­tion are clear in that “they want to put an end to the CBI”.

He warned putting an end to the pro­gramme would de­ny cit­i­zens “the ben­e­fits you have been re­ceiv­ing,” adding that he had been in con­ver­sa­tion with an un­named Eu­ro­pean diplo­mat who told him that he has been “fol­low­ing what is hap­pen­ing in these is­lands and while these peo­ple say­ing their ac­tions are not to stop or de­struct the pro­gramme in the OECS (Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States) coun­tries that is ex­act­ly what they are do­ing”.

St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines and British Over­seas Ter­ri­to­ry of Montser­rat are the on­ly two OECS coun­tries not in­volved in the CBI pro­grammes.

“And you know and I know the im­pact this will have on every one of us in Do­mini­ca, in­clud­ing their fam­i­lies. Try­ing to de­stroy the back­bone of our non-tax rev­enue and deny­ing us the op­por­tu­ni­ties to have de­cent homes, deny­ing us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have de­cent health care, deny­ing us the op­por­tu­ni­ty for our chil­dren to at­tend uni­ver­si­ties, deny­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty for an in­ter­na­tion­al air­port….

“These are the things that are hap­pen­ing. Let us rise up…let us not be qui­et and silent while these peo­ple are at­tack­ing us. We have to fight back and we have to stand firm,” Sker­rit told DLP sup­port­ers.

Sker­rit al­so brushed aside op­po­si­tion sug­ges­tions that he in­tends call­ing an ear­ly gen­er­al elec­tion as he did on the last oc­ca­sion on De­cem­ber 6 last year when the DLP won 18 of the 21 seats fol­low­ing an op­po­si­tion boy­cott.

ROSEAU, Do­mini­ca, Nov 11, CMC

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