Barbadian citizenship cannot be bought or sold like a commodity, insists Dwight Sutherland, who chaired the committee examining the Immigration Bill, 2026, and the Barbados Citizenship Bill, 2026.
The issues returned to Parliament yesterday when the House of Assembly discussed the Resolution To Adopt The Report Of The Joint Select Committee (Standing) On the Economic And Productive Sector, 2026, which was passed, prior to the replacement Bills with a number of revisions being laid and debated.
Sutherland said the committee examined the issue raised about people who acquired CARICOM citizenship through an investment programme and whether they could use that citizenship by investment for a pathway into Barbados.
“So, clearly the committee was advised that the relevant provisions applies to nationals of a member state by birth, descent or naturalisation. And that did not extend to persons who acquired nationality through citizen by investment. This is an important safeguard. This prevents the regional framework from being converted to a shorter time frame for citizenship in this country,” he told the House.
The Member of Parliament for St George South said Barbados supported CARICOM and regional integration but valued the integrity of Barbadian citizenship.
“So citizenship by investment was taken off the cards for persons who became nationals of CARICOM countries by investment. I believe we need to say something about this clearly . . . because citizenship is not a commodity. It should not be bought and it should not be sold. It should not be treated as a simple economic product,” he said.
Sutherland noted it was not a matter of Barbados not valuing people who did business in the country, but that was not the way to treat citizenship and that did not mean the country rejected investment.
‘We need investment’
“It’s quite the opposite. We need the investment. We need entrepreneurship. We need the skills. We need innovation and we need people who will build businesses in this country and employ Barbadians, and contribute to our country and our communities. But economic contribution and citizenship are not identical.
“A person can make enormous economic contribution to this country without automatically becoming a citizen and that’s how we preserve the value of our citizenship. A person who eventually becomes a citizen of this country should do so through the transparent statutory process that has been outlined in these Bills,” he stated.
Minister of Home Affairs and Member of Parliament for St Thomas Gregory Nicholls earlier said the Bills had gone before the House in April following the General Election of February 11. He added it was the intention of the Government to put those Bills back on the order paper as they were prior to the election while in consideration by another Joint Select Committee on Governance Policy of 2025.
However, he said, with the election called, all the business of the House went away and the Government felt that prior to the dissolution of Parliament, the Joint Select Committee had completed its public deliberations and compiled a report up to the point of making recommendations for changes in the Bills.
“Therefore it would be important for that process, though curtailed by the General Election, to be continued without Government going ahead and making changes based on the comments and observations made by members of the public,” Nicholls stated.
As a result, the Bills were put back before a separate Joint Select Committee without any changes to allow the process of public consultation and scrutiny. ( AC)