Opposition Leader Lennox Linton calls for an immediate halt to sales of Dominica Diplomatic Passports

​Opposition Leader Lennox Linton calls for an immediate halt to the sale of Dominica Diplomatic Passports.  He says “indiscriminate distribution” of Diplomatic Passports is the biggest threat to the island’s Citizenship by Investment Program (CBI).
 
Linton is of the view that it is time for Dominicans to wake up and demand the immediate stop to the sale of Diplomatic Passports, until a full independent inquiry is undertaken, so as to determine what transpired during in the last seventeen (17) years, under the Dominica Labour Party Administration.
 
Linton says CBS 60 Minutes investigations found that “the sale of Diplomatic Passports, though not part of the Citizenship By Investment (CBI) program, goes on ‘under the table’, particularly in Dominica which has had a most impressive group of dodgy diplomats.” He claims that 227 Diplomatic Passports were issued between October 14, 2010, and January 11, 2016, and Dominicans need to know who has these passports.
 
He noted that on October 19, 2016, as a responsible opposition, a question was posed in Parliament to the minister concerned, but it was ignored. He however noted that similar questions were asked in 2006 and 2012, and answers were received, but when asked in 2016, the Government’s response that it does not reveal sensitive information, was ‘curious’, in its contradictory statement that ‘The Government has never, as a rule, publicized sensitive details of appointments outside of corresponding countries to which persons are engaged.’
 
Linton questioned that answer, by asking what sensitive details did the opposition ask for? We only requested the names of the holders of the passports; and if such passports have been revoked or cancelled, the date of such revocation or cancellation. Linton said the response of the Government shows that something is amiss.
 
Meanwhile, at a press conference last week, Prime Minister Skerrit insisted that Dominica’s Diplomatic Passports are not sold under any circumstances.