How Selling Citizenship Is Now Big Business – TheNigerialawyer

You can be born into it, you can earn it, and you can lose it.
Increasingly, you can also invest your way into it.

The “it” is citizenship of a particular country, and it is a
more fluid concept than ever before. Go back 50 years, and it was
uncommon for countries to allow dual citizenship, but it is now
almost universal.

More than half of the world’s nations now have
citizenship-through-investment programmes. According to one expert,
Swiss lawyer Christian Kalin, it is now a global industry worth
$25bn (£20bn) a year.

Mr Kalin, who has been dubbed “Mr Passport”, is the chairman of
Henley & Partners, one of the world’s biggest players in this
rapidly growing market. His global business helps wealthy
individuals and their families acquire residency or citizenship in
other countries.

He says that our traditional notions of citizenship are
“outdated”. “This is one of the few things left in the world that
is tied to blood lines, or where you are born,” he says. He argues
that a rethink is very much due.

“It’s super unfair,” he says, explaining that where we are born
is by no means down to our own skill or talent, but instead “pure
luck”. “What is wrong with regarding citizenship like a
membership,” he adds. “And what is wrong with admitting talented
people who will contribute?”

There are those who support his argument. But for many, the idea
that passports, so tied to identity, are in some way a commodity,
doesn’t sit well.

We followed the citizenship trail to the tiny Pacific island
nation of Vanuatu. Since the country introduced its new citizenship
scheme four years ago, it’s seen an explosion of interest.
Passports now provide the biggest source of its government’s
revenues.

For many aspiring Vanuatu passport holders, the biggest draw is
visa-free travel throughout Europe.

Most foreign recipients of Vanuatu passports never even step
foot in the country. Instead they apply for their citizenship in
offices overseas, like the licensed Vanuatu citizenship broker PRG
Consulting, based in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is one of the world’s biggest citizenship
marketplaces. In a cafe at Hong Kong airport, we met the
citizenship agent MJ, a private businessman who helps an increasing
number of mainland Chinese obtain a second or even third
passport.

“They don’t feel safe [in China],” he says of his clients. “They
want access to Europe to open a bank account, to buy property or to
start businesses.”

Citizenship is a competitive global market, and for many small
and island nations, notably in the Caribbean – the price for a
passport is around $150,000. The cost of a Vanuatu passport is said
to be around the same level.

How much does it cost to buy a passport?
Antigua and Barbuda; from $100,000
St Kitt’s and Nevis; from $150,000
Montenegro; from $274,000
Portugal; from $384,000
Spain; from $550,000
Bulgaria; from $560,000
Malta; from $1m
US; from $900,000 invested in a business creating 10 jobs
UK; from $2.5m

A Vanuatu passport, MJ explains, is “so fast” to arrange (you
can get one in just 30 days), and that helps make it a popular
choice. But Mr Kalin and others caution that Vanuatu has a
reputation for corruption. As a result, Henley & Partners and
others do not deal with the Vanuatu citizenship programme.

However, this doesn’t stop the interest from China. A few years
ago Hong Kong television channels aired catchy TV advertisements
promoting Vanuatu citizenship, aimed at the territory’s steady flow
of visitors from the mainland.

So how many Chinese clients actually visit Vanuatu, after
receiving citizenship? Maybe one in 10, guesses MJ.

Port Vila is the capital of Vanuatu, and a city of contrasts.
The roads are often flooded and scarred with potholes. There’s not
a single set of traffic lights, but congestion is worsening thanks
to the growing number of shiny four-wheel drives.

It’s a tax haven, and recently rejoined the EU’s “blacklist” of
countries, over transparency and corruption issues.

The country’s people – known as Ni Vanuatu – were only
officially recognised as citizens themselves in 1980, when the
country achieved independence. Previously it was an Anglo-French
condominium called the New Hebrides, and the people are scattered
over a daisy chain of more than 80 islands.

Less than 40 years ago, they were stateless. A fact not lost on
former Prime Minister Barak Sope.

“I didn’t have a passport until 1980,” he says, sitting in a
hotel and casino on Port Vila’s main road. “I had to travel with a
piece of paper the British and the French gave to me. It was
humiliating.”

Mr Sope says it is a “betrayal” for Vanuatu to sell its
citizenship, and points to the flood of Chinese investment in the
region. “The Chinese have so much more money than us,” he says
exasperated.

The Chinese investment is criticised by locals such as Mr Sope,
who complain that the Chinese companies keep all the money, and
only employ Chinese labour.

Vanuatu’s all male government, one of only three countries in
the world where women are entirely excluded from politics, was not
keen to speak to us about its citizenship scheme. But we tracked
down a government appointed citizenship agent, Bill Bani, who
explains his take on the initiative.

“We have to look at Vanuatu on a global scale,” he says. “Other
countries sell passports to make their living, we don’t have a lot
of natural resources. It’s bringing in a lot of money to
Vanuatu.”

But for the mainly rural population the policy has been highly
controversial since its inception in 2015.

Anne Pakoa, a community leader, shows us around a typical
village made up of corrugated iron shacks. It’s just 10 minutes’
drive down a dirt road from the shops and restaurants of the
capital but feels a world away.

Anne says that local communities aren’t seeing the money from
the passport sales, despite promises that the scheme would rebuild
infrastructure and homes after the devastating Cyclone Pam in
2015.

“Our ancestors died for our freedom. Now people are carrying the
same green passport I carry? For $150,000? Where is the money? I
think this has to stop,” she says.

Susan, another woman from the same village, shows us a dirty
well. “I want the government to provide a running tap, so that the
children can have a shower, and drink clean and safe water,” she
says.

With demand from the Chinese market booming, Dan McGarry, who
runs the local newspaper, says it will be hard to imagine a change
in policy anytime soon.

Passport sales now account for more than 30% of the country’s
revenue, according to Dan. “For a tiny country like ours this is a
big deal. But we have to ask ourselves, is this what we fought for?
Is this right? Is it right to sell our hard won sovereignty to the
highest bidder?”

It’s a question that many countries, not just Vanuatu, will have
to grapple with in an increasingly globalised world. But as Mr
Kalin, from Henley & Partners, says: “Citizenship through
investment, and investment migration programmes, are nothing but a
reflection of a world where everything has become more fluid.”

Culled from BBC
News^[1], Vanuatu
By Sarah Treanor and Vivienne Nunis Business reporters,

CENDAL Hosts SDGs Summit in ABU

As part of the mandate of the Centre for Development and
Advanced Learning (CENDAL) to promote educational excellence in and
around the sustainable development goals of the United Nations,
CENDAL would in collaboration with Connected Development host the
first Universities SDGs Summit in Ahmadu Bello University.

The Summit which is scheduled to hold from February 27th – 1st
March 2020 seeks to host students and professionals from different
institutions in Nigeria to drive more awareness around the United
Nations Global Goals for sustainable development.

The Summit would be featuring Panel Discussions and Paper
Presentations from VCs and other key individuals from the academia
and other institutions. Awards would also be issued to students and
other institutions for their active contribution to the Global
Goals.

With just ten years 2020 until the next review for the SDGs, the
pertinence of collaboration cannot be overemphasized.

The summit is to hold annually in different universities around
the country leading up to the next review of the United Nations and
every year a compendium of the summit detailing students concerns,
communiques from the summit panels and suggestions on how the
government and the United Nations itself can further advance better
achievement of the goals would be published. This compendium is to
serve as a referral document for public consumption.

The Centre invites Universities, Organizations and other
promoters of the SDGs to join in on the summit.

By PRNigeria^[1]