As Dominica prepares its national budget for the coming fiscal cycle, Opposition Leader Jesma Paul-Victor has sounded a public alarm over a sharp ongoing decline in revenue from the island nation’s high-profile Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme, cautioning that the downward trend threatens core public development projects that have long depended on this funding stream.
For decades, Dominica’s CBI initiative — which grants citizenship to foreign investors in exchange for qualified financial contributions — has been a cornerstone of the country’s development financing. Paul-Victor acknowledged the programme’s outsized positive contributions to the country’s growth over the years, noting it has enabled the government to deliver critical public assets ranging from new schools and hospitals to affordable housing, paved road networks, clean water distribution systems, and large-scale climate resilience infrastructure that protects communities against extreme weather events.
Despite its track record of success, however, Paul-Victor warned that current revenue projections paint a worrying picture of steady decline. Data she presented during her official response to the government’s budget proposal shows the programme generated roughly $605 million in revenue in the last completed fiscal year. For the current fiscal cycle, the government has budgeted approximately $514.9 million in CBI revenue, marking a 15% drop from the previous year. Looking ahead to the 2027-2028 fiscal period, projections put CBI revenue at an even lower $474.8 million, extending the downward trajectory.
This consistent decline carries serious risks for all major development initiatives that rely on CBI funding, Paul-Victor emphasized. Beyond the immediate budget challenges, she argued that the trend exposes a critical long-term vulnerability: Dominica’s growing over-dependence on a single revenue stream to power its national development.
Drawing on lessons from global economic history, the opposition leader pointed to the risks that have plagued other small island developing states that relied too heavily on a single export or revenue source, from bananas and sugar to oil and tourism. No single economic pillar, she argued, can deliver consistent stable growth over the long term, and CBI is no exception.
To address this vulnerability, Paul-Victor called for a strategic shift in how CBI revenue is used. Instead of directing most funds to one-off infrastructure projects, she argued that a growing share of CBI proceeds should be invested in building long-term productive capacity across multiple economic sectors that can drive sustained private sector growth. Ultimately, she said, Dominica needs to build a diversified, multi-pillar economy that includes agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, international financial services, digital industries, renewable energy, education services, innovation, and the creative economy — reducing the nation’s exposure to shocks from any single revenue stream’s decline.