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During a heated parliamentary debate on Tuesday, Antigua and Barbuda’s Education Minister Daryll Matthew pushed back against fierce opposition criticism of the government’s approach to ongoing negotiations with the United States focused on potential transfers of third-country nationals. Opponents of the governing administration have repeatedly claimed that the small Caribbean nation holds no meaningful leverage in talks with Washington, citing its geographic size and pre-existing U.S. visa restrictions as factors that leave Antigua and Barbuda negotiating from a position of extreme weakness. Matthew rejected this narrative outright, arguing that the country’s greatest strategic strength comes from staying at the negotiating table and advancing terms that prioritize the well-being of all Antiguan and Barbudan citizens.

Addressing the full legislative body during debate over a parliamentary resolution that establishes a formal framework for continued negotiations, Matthew reframed the opposition’s “no cards” argument. “We may have a small hand. We may have a small voice. However, we still have the responsibility to negotiate in the best interests of our people,” he told assembled lawmakers. “The only time you have no cards is when you get them from the table and walk away.” With both the Antiguan-Barbudan negotiating team and U.S. representatives remaining committed to ongoing discussions, he emphasized that the government will continue working toward a final outcome that delivers benefits to the country’s population.

Matthew stressed that responsible governance demands sustained engagement even when negotiating with a far larger global power, pushing back against opposition calls for a complete overhaul of the government’s negotiation approach. He also pushed for cross-party unity on this sensitive issue, noting that questions of national interest should never devolve into partisan political fighting, and calling for a broad national consensus around the government’s negotiating priorities. “There must be some things that, as a nation, we can collectively agree on,” he said. “This is one of them.”

The minister commended Prime Minister Gaston Browne, Ambassador Sir Ronald Sanders, and the full government negotiating team for publicly releasing a White Paper on the talks and bringing the framework resolution before parliament, a move he said demonstrates the administration’s commitment to transparency and keeps the general public fully informed about ongoing discussions. “I want to commend the Prime Minister… and the entire team that has been working diligently on this over the past six, eight months for putting everything here on the table,” Matthew stated.

He also categorically denied opposition claims that the government had already struck a secret deal to accept third-country nationals, clarifying that the current resolution before parliament does not ask lawmakers to approve a finalized agreement or bind Antigua and Barbuda to accepting any transfers at all. “This resolution is not committing the government to accept anyone,” he explained. “We are not approving the operating procedures. We’re not committing to receive. What we’re doing is simply saying that we want certain issues satisfied.”

Matthew laid out clear non-negotiable conditions that any final agreement must meet to gain approval, starting with a hard cap of just 10 total transfers in 2026. After the initial pilot period, he said, the country can reassess whether the arrangement delivers tangible benefits to national development. Additional key requirements include a total ban on accepting any individuals with criminal convictions, no additional financial burden placed on Antiguan and Barbudan taxpayers, and permanent retention of the government’s right to reject any individual proposed for transfer.

Warned that allowing convicted criminals to be transferred to the small island nation would carry catastrophic risks for public safety, Matthew highlighted the severe harm that even one high-risk offender could cause. “Can you imagine if one convicted pedophile was deported to Antigua and Barbuda and just ran havoc in this country? Can you imagine if a serial killer was transferred from the United States to Antigua and Barbuda? … Can you imagine if a sophisticated gang leader came to Antigua and Barbuda?” he asked. These risks, he argued, fully justify the government’s insistence on maintaining the final say over which individuals may be transferred. “There must be an opportunity for us as a nation to say, ‘This person, no,’” he said. “We have to have a framework in place that protects our national interests.”

Matthew also noted that Antigua and Barbuda’s limited public infrastructure cannot support unregulated transfers, adding that the country cannot afford additional strain on already constrained housing, healthcare, and other core public services. “I cannot, with a good conscience, tell my constituents that we had no cards, we had to take all of them, we had to put it on the taxpayers’ purse, we had to give them a job, we had to give them a house,” he said.

Despite the strict conditions the government has laid out, Matthew struck an optimistic tone about the progress of talks, saying that the two sides are closer to a mutually acceptable agreement than critics have claimed. After reviewing the negotiated White Paper and all draft documents exchanged between the two parties, he concluded that “We’re not so far apart.”

Closing his remarks, Matthew once again praised the governing team for bringing the issue to parliament for open debate, reinforcing the government’s commitment to transparency and public accountability. “I want to commend the Prime Minister and his team for bringing this resolution to Parliament so that we can speak with clarity, so that the public understands exactly what it is we’re doing,” he said.

In a significant legislative development for Antigua and Barbuda’s lucrative Citizenship by Investment (CIP) programme, the nation’s House of Representatives has approved the 2026 Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Bill, with cross-party support from senior lawmakers emphasizing the urgent need for strengthened oversight amid rising international pressure.

Trevor Walker, the Member of Parliament for Barbuda, emerged as a key backer of the reforms, framing the updated regulations as a critical safeguard for the country’s largest source of non-tax revenue. Walker told parliamentary deliberations on Tuesday that the CIP programme, which he estimates injects more than $100 million into the national budget annually, is the backbone of Antigua and Barbuda’s public finances, but its long-term survival depends on addressing growing global scrutiny through enhanced transparency and accountability.

Warning that the programme faces mounting geopolitical challenges that threaten its future, Walker argued that preserving its credibility must be a top policy priority for the government. He specifically welcomed the reinstatement of mandatory annual audits, a provision that was controversially repealed back in 2016. The new legislation not only brings back routine audit requirements, it also adds new rules mandating formal responses to audit findings, authorizes special targeted audits, and expands mandatory reporting obligations for CIP administrators.

Walker went a step further, urging the government to fully reinstate the detailed semi-annual reporting requirements outlined in the original 2013 CIP enabling legislation. He noted that while reports are still submitted to parliament currently, they lack the granular detail about contributions, investment flows and programme activity that the original law required, a gap that creates unnecessary room for suspicion among both domestic citizens and international partners.

The call for tighter rules comes as Antigua and Barbuda has faced increasing scrutiny of its investment migration scheme from both the European Union and the United States. Walker acknowledged that decades of cutthroat competition between Caribbean CIP jurisdictions had previously pushed many countries to relax regulatory standards to attract more applicants, but he highlighted that the Eastern Caribbean region is now unified in moving toward harmonized, stricter rules. He stressed that the fate of all regional programmes is interconnected: “When this boat sinks, we all go down with it,” he said, pointing out that any national programme’s failure to meet global standards could lead to restricted visa-free access for all Caribbean passport holders, eroding the value of citizenship across the bloc.

Walker also extended rare cross-party praise to Prime Minister Gaston Browne for his longstanding advocacy for a centralized regional regulatory body to oversee CIP programmes across the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), saying he hoped the new framework would deliver on the promise of stronger governance.

In his remarks opening the debate, Prime Minister Browne clarified that the core purpose of the amendment is to align Antigua and Barbuda’s domestic law with the agreement establishing the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority, which is set to come into force later this year. The new regional body will enforce uniform regulatory standards across all participating member states, limiting the ability of individual nations to deviate from collectively agreed rules that protect the integrity of all programmes.

Key provisions of the new bill include a requirement for annual independent financial audits and biannual operational audits of every national CIP unit, with the regional regulator tasked with ensuring compliance and protecting sensitive applicant data. The legislation also raises the minimum residency requirement for successful CIP applicants and their dependent family members from five days to 30 days, bringing Antigua and Barbuda into compliance with the regional standard already approved by all OECS members. Browne added that the amendments resolve any remaining inconsistencies between domestic law and the regional agreement, formalizing policy changes that have already been implemented through administrative action.

Other new rules require the national CIP Unit to submit detailed six-month progress reports to both the regional regulator and the national parliament, while granting the regional body expanded oversight authority. The authority will now manage pre-qualification of CIP agents, require formal no-objection notices before local operating licenses are issued, mandate adherence to regional standards and guidelines, and require the revocation of licenses when regulatory approval is denied or withdrawn. Browne emphasized that these changes are designed to block unethical and unqualified promoters from participating in the programme and ensure consistent regulatory standards across the Eastern Caribbean. Following full debate, the House of Representatives passed the bill into law.

On Tuesday, the lower legislative chamber of Antigua and Barbuda approved the 2026 Banking Amendment Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that overhauls the national rules governing abandoned bank deposits and unclaimed assets, while opening a new pathway to redirect stagnant financial resources toward targeted regional economic growth.

Introducing the bill to parliament, Prime Minister Gaston Browne laid out that the reform updates decades-old outdated protocols for handling unclaimed property within the domestic banking sector, covering everything from long-dormant customer accounts to forgotten valuables held in bank safety deposit boxes, all while cementing stronger legal protections for depositors and their rightful heirs.

Under the current regulatory framework that has been in place for years, abandoned funds are transferred to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) after a decade of inactivity, and if no valid claim is filed within an additional 10 years, the assets are permanently forfeited. The new amended law upends this structure: it allows unclaimed funds to be transferred to the governments of member states of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, while enshrining an indefinite right for original depositors or their beneficiaries to reclaim full value of the assets at any point, as long as they can verify their legal ownership.

Browne emphasized to lawmakers that this structure offers far more robust protection for asset owners than the outgoing legislation, which placed a hard expiration on all claims. He added that across the entire Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, unclaimed deposits add up to an estimated $48 million US dollars – a massive underutilized asset pool that can be put to productive public use without ever compromising the rights of owners and their heirs.

Beyond the reform of unclaimed asset rules, the prime minister outlined an ambitious broader vision for regional economic transformation centered on the ECCB’s substantial foreign reserve holdings. Currently, the ECCB holds roughly $6 billion US dollars in foreign reserves, the vast majority of which are invested overseas. Browne is proposing that between 5 and 7 percent of these reserves be allocated to finance strategic regional development projects, with a priority focus on two critical areas: renewable energy development and regional food security.

For decades, the Eastern Caribbean dollar has been celebrated for its strong reserve backing, which currently sits close to 98 percent – far higher than the mandatory regulatory threshold. Browne argued that deploying a small fraction of these reserves to regional projects will generate inclusive economic growth without putting monetary stability at any meaningful risk. He noted that investments in local renewable energy infrastructure would cut the region’s heavy reliance on costly imported fossil fuels, bring down consumer electricity prices, further strengthen foreign reserve positions over time, and help member states meet their international climate change mitigation commitments.

Browne disclosed that the ECCB’s Monetary Council has already reached a preliminary consensus to move forward with the proposal, and noted that additional amendments to regional banking legislation will likely be required to formally grant the ECCB authority to make these strategic regional investments. He stressed that the plan does not involve permanently distributing central bank reserves; instead, the funds will be disbursed as repayable loans, which will replenish the reserve pool over time while financing projects that deliver long-term shared economic benefits for the region.

A core principle of the proposal, Browne added, is that all investments made through this initiative must remain under regional and local ownership, rather than falling under the control of foreign private entities. The Antigua and Barbuda government prioritizes strategic projects like utility-scale renewable energy plants that include significant public and local private investment, so that profits generated by these projects stay within the region to support further growth. “We believe very strongly that ownership is empowerment,” Browne stated.

To illustrate the immediate local impact of the unclaimed funds reform, Browne noted that Antigua and Barbuda alone holds roughly $38 million US dollars in unclaimed deposits. After setting aside a sufficient reserve portion to cover any potential future claims, the remaining balance can be redirected to national development projects, rather than sitting idle in overseas accounts.

The new legislation also establishes a clear regulatory framework for unclaimed contents of safety deposit boxes. Under the new rules, valuables that remain unclaimed for 10 years may be sold through public auction, with the proceeds held in a newly created Safe Deposit Box Liquidation Fund for an additional 10 years, giving owners or heirs extra time to come forward to claim the funds.

Addressing any potential concerns about government overreach, Browne clarified to lawmakers: “We’re not just trying to go and confiscate people’s money. We’re not trying to steal people’s money. We’re trying to use that money for the development of our respective countries.”

During parliamentary debate, Trevor Walker, the member of parliament for Barbuda, raised questions about the provision that reduces the waiting period before assets are classified as abandoned to 10 years, but expressed support for the overall direction of the legislation. Walker backed the government’s focus on renewable energy development, saying that the country must continue its transition toward affordable clean power while ensuring that major strategic investments stay under local control.

“We must control it. It must not be outsourced,” Walker said, adding that the proposal represents the kind of forward-thinking policy that can improve long-term economic and environmental sustainability while lowering living costs for ordinary citizens. Walker ultimately announced his support for the bill, calling it a bold initiative that will strengthen Antigua and Barbuda’s global reputation as a progressive investment destination and move the country beyond outdated, conventional approaches to economic development.