During a meeting with Saint Lucians in New York on September 29, Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre spoke of his plans to bring a Diaspora Bill before parliament.
The bill would provide incentives for individuals who want to invest in the island.
These incentives will not be available to non-nationals.
Pierre mentioned that the diaspora bill would allow Saint Lucians who have lived abroad for ten years to bring items onto the island duty-free.
During his address, the Prime Minister also spoke about delays in the finalisation of regulations that will allow the grandchildren of Saint Lucians living abroad to attain automatic citizenship.
Pierre stated: “We’ve made the first step in the 2nd generation citizenship … the administrative work to do that is taking some time.”
“We have rules and regulations to follow. We are part of international bodies, part of the UN, part of the world bank, [and] part of the IMF. We have to follow rules and regulations…” The Prime Minister remarked, asserting sanctions require obedience to international rules and the administration needing to follow these measures results in delays.
At the meeting, Pierre took the opportunity to urge individuals making physical donations to Saint Lucia to send these items through the Saint Lucia Social Development Fund (SSDF).
“We appreciate what you do for Saint Lucia… because when you send your remittances, when you send your barrels, you send [them] for Saint Lucia and Saint Lucia benefits,” Pierre said, advising, “If you intend to send stuff to the country for schools or for the hospitals, do not send it under individual names, send it to the SSDF and they will do the distribution, because when you send it to individual names or organisations, it takes too much because Saint Lucia has laws and regulations.”
The Prime Minister informed that at the moment, while items sent under individuals’ names are currently not VAT exempt, “… when you send it to the SSDF they are a body that are VAT exempt.
Bondaye, I don’t even know where to start… the 2nd generation citizenship is taking time, but you handing out our passports to foreigners for peanuts. Perhaps it’s taking so long because we are being observed by international organisations already for having shady citizenship practices.
The reason why people send items to their loved ones for donation, is because they know where their items are going. Handing my donations over to SSDF is to TRUST that they will send the donations where I want vs. it ending up at their cousin home. So I will pay the VAT for my peace of mind, please and thanks.
Lastly, stop lying to the people. That 10-year duty-free thing has existed on the books for more than a decade now. I would know because it’s what my relatives used when they relocated to SLU in the mid-2000’s.
Our Prime Minister, you are right to fool the fools. The Returning National concession has been enacted for decades. Embedded in it is the second-generation qualification for Citizenship. Secondly, there are NGOs and other charitable organizations St Lucians in the diaspora can send barrels to. They are the best means of distributing the items without political interference.