Nevis: Premier of Nevis and the leader of Concerned Citizens Movement Mark Brantley stated that when he was Foreign Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, he also worked to rebuild the country’s hitherto tarnished image regionally and internationally.
Mark Brantley said that he was given the task of rebuilding relations with old friends and finding new friends for the country.
He said, “The record will show that since the CCM joined Team Unity in government in 2015 that, I was given the task of Foreign Minister. My job was rebuilding our country’s hitherto tarnished image regionally and internationally. I was tasked with rebuilding relations with old friends and finding new friends for our country.”
Read Here: Full Statement of Premier Mark Brantley, in which he outlined the diplomatic relations between St Kitts and Nevis and other countries. He also stressed that these relations had been made due to his incredible work, dedication and commitment.
My staff and I navigated the world’s capitals to ensure that no hint of scandal diplomatically befell our beloved country. We negotiated an unprecedented number of scholarships for our young people to countries such as Morocco, Romania, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Chile, Austria, Serbia and India. We led the fight for Caribbean nationals living in the UK on the Windrush scandal.
My staff and I set the goal of negotiating as many visa waiver agreements as possible to ensure that the St Kitts Nevis passport became the most powerful in all of CARICOM. Why was this important? Simple. With the Citizenship by Investment programme being so critical to the economy of St Kitts and Nevis, the power of our passport gives St Kitts and Nevis a more desirable product than our regional competitors and sets us well apart from the rest.
During this time it is absolutely remarkable that we entered into formal diplomatic relations with some 47 additional countries: Belarus, Bolivia, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Kenya, Kosovo, The Maldives, Mauritius, Mongolia, The Gambia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Turkmenistan, Brunei Darussalam, Ethiopia, Qatar, Moldova , Lao PDR, Armenia, Mozambique Gabon, Eswatini formerly Swaziland, Tajikistan, Kryzk Republic, San Marino, Togo, São Tomé and Principe, Bahrain, Serbia, Rwanda, Palestine, North Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cambodia, Honduras, Djibouti, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Sudan, Tuvalu and Uganda.
Even more remarkable is that we added some 32 countries where our citizens can travel visa-free and an additional 2 where our diplomats and officials can travel visa-free: Kosovo, Brazil, Ukraine, The Maldives, Indonesia, Seychelles, Bolivia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Zambia, Taiwan, Russia, India (diplomatic and official passports), Rwanda, The Gambia, Belarus, Montenegro, Ghana (diplomatic and official passports), Serbia (2019), San Marino, Togo, Albania Georgia, Paraguay, Marshall Islands, Uzbekistan, Eswatini (2020), North Macedonia, Burkina Faso Gabon, Palestine, São Tomé and Principe, Sudan and Tuvalu.
The meteoric rise of the popularity of the St Kitts and Nevis CBI programme coincided precisely with the dramatic expansion of the network of countries that our passport takes us to without a visa. Put differently, the work of my staff and I ensured the success of our CBI programme. You can therefore understand how disturbing it must be for the people of Nevis that I as one of their elected representatives would have done so much to guarantee the success of the CBI programme only for Nevis to receive a paltry 7% of the returns while the Federal government kept 93% or some $5 BILLION for itself.
This election is all about who will be willing to stand by, with and for the people of Nevis to ensure that we are respected, that we get our fair share and the full fruits of our citizenship.
That is why I am humbly asking you to #Vote CCM.
