CIP Saint Lucia approved only 2047, Not 14,000 applicants, says CBI Minister

He claimed that he has no connections with Martinez or his company and they had had no dealings with the citizenship by investment programme of Saint Lucia.

Thursday, 13th June 2024

CBI Minister while speaking during a conference (PC - Facebook)

Saint Lucia: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism Dr. Ernest Hilaire refuted the baseless allegations made by the leader of the opposition Allen Chastanet and Philippe Martinez of MSR Media. He claimed that he has no connections with Martinez or his company and they had had no dealings with the citizenship by investment programme of Saint Lucia. Hilaire made these statements while speaking during a special press conference after accusations made by MSR Media's Philippe Martinez who named CIP Head Mc Claude Emmanuel and many others in a RICO Law suit mentioning the underselling of CBI applications by a company named Caribbean Galaxy. While calling the claims false, baseless, malicious and scandalous, Ernest Hilaire noted that between July 2021 to March 2024, the CIP Unit approved only 2047 applications and of these 1367 were Real Estate for Caribbean Galaxy Real Estate. This is contrary to what Martinez stated in a public interview, which was repeated by Allen Chastanet and the opposition UWP. "Saint Lucia has never approved 14000 applicants," outlined the Tourism Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister also expressed his concern over the fact that the United Workers Party and, in particular, the leader of the opposition, Allen Chastanet, has aligned himself with Martinez, who has clearly embarked on a mission to destroy Saint Lucia and the CIP. Furthermore, Hilaire also mentioned that Saint Lucia's position is clear, and they don't want to be dragged into malicious accusations or lawsuits.

Procedure to Invest in Real Estate

During his address, Hilaire also explained the process of real estate investment while noting that the application first must pass all the necessary and robust due diligence requirements. Once approved, the applicant then needs to purchase shares in a development at the minimum states cost which in Saint Lucia is US$200,000. This amount is then paid into an escrow account which is the money of the developer and not the government and is to be utilised for developing the resort according to the approved development plan. Additionally, the applicant also needs to pay the government an administrative fee of US$50,000 for each application with Hilaire emphasising that there is no $1.4 billion.

"We have only approved 1367 real estate applications for Galaxy. That 1367 applications cannot in any Mathematic calculations equals to $1.2/$1.4 billion," added the CBI Minister.

Martinez's dispute in St. Kitts and Nevis

He further added that in 2022, Philippe Martinez and MSR Media obtained a license for a CIP Project under the alternative investment option in St Kitts and Nevis. Following this, in November 2023, Hilaire said that Martinez wrote to one of his competitors, Caribbean Galaxy – Les Khan, the CEO, and also the former Prime Minister Dr Timothy Harris and others. He claimed alleged fraud, tax evasion and money laundering and his contention was that Caribbean Galaxy was selling citizenship at a fraction of the rate by under-pricing its shares in its project. "His contention was this has caused him to lose, and he was entitled to financial damages," added Hilaire while emphasizing that defamation proceedings were filed against Martinez and MSR Media by Galaxy and also by Dr. Timothy Harris. In addition to this, Caribbean Galaxy also has a project in Saint Lucia and as such Martinez has sought to include Saint Lucia in his claims. Meanwhile, Saint Lucia's position was that this is a matter between St Kitts and Nevis, Galaxy and Martinez and they did not wanted to be involved. Martinez response was that he had evidence of Galaxy's wrongdoing and invited Prime Minister Philip J Pierre and Minister Ernest Hilaire to Washington to examine the evidence. "Our position was clear we were not going to be drawn into Martinez's conflict with the government and people of St Kitts and Galaxy," he outlined.

False accusations by Martinez, claims Hilaire

In response, Martinez filed a RICO Civil Lawsuit, which included two former Prime Ministers of St Kitts and Nevis, Caribbean Galaxy, and Mc Claude Emmanuel, CEO of Saint Lucia's CIP. As a defendant in the lawsuit, he claimed that Emmanuel was aware of the alleged scam and had failed to stop it. Ernest Hilaire strongly claimed, "We have instructed our lawyers to take all necessary action in the US courts to remove Mr Emmanuel's name from this filing as this is not related to St Lucia nor Mr Emmanuel and is clearly malicious."

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Hilaire also mentioned that Martinez failed to include the name of Allen Chastanet, who brought Galaxy to Saint Lucia in 2018 and under whose government Galaxy began selling shares.

Allen Chastanet brought the Caribbean Galaxy to Saint Lucia

He reminded everyone that Caribbean Galaxy was brought into Saint Lucia by Chastanet and his government and became an approved developer under the real estate option. Caribbean Galaxy bought the Canal's lands so much that the UWP government even sold the mangroves, which Galaxy had to return. The then UWP government gave them their first allocation of citizenships for the construction of the resort at Canal. It is to be noted that during his time in opposition, Hilaire spoke out against Galaxy as it was selling citizenship and there had been no construction or activity and they had not completed their development in St Kitts and Nevis even. On the other land when the Saint Lucia Labour Party administration came into office in July 2021, there was no construction work at the site, the only structure which existed was a residential building for more than 200 Chinese workers. In a meeting with Caribbean Galaxy in November 2021, they were informed that as they are holding money in an escrow account in Hong Kong, they are required by law to construct the resort. Galaxy agreed that once they finish selling shares for their project in St Kitts they would move their operations to St Lucia to commence the resort development. The construction on the resort began in early 2023 under the SLP Administration and the project is presently ongoing with free local contractors and employment of over 300 Saint Lucian citizens.