Montserrat’s Minister of Finance and Premier, Donaldson Romeo said Wednesday that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has removed Montserrat from its list of jurisdictions that offer potentially high risk schemes, such as residence or citizenship by investment programmes.
This removal follows last week’s reports that Montserrat was one of several nations with “golden passports.” Premier Romeo said during the Legislative Assembly, in response to a question from the Opposition, that they had immediately sent communication to the relevant officials in the OECD to understand why they were flagged as high-risk.
Premier Romeo said Montserrat had not been blacklisted as was reported.
The minister, who has responsibility for finance, said that during further communication with the OECD over the weekend, the organization was informed that up until 2014 only 11 people were granted residency under the Economic Residency scheme which caused the island to be labeled high-risk. The OECD Officers were also informed that since 2014, when the current administration assumed office, to present no applications for Economic Residency has been approved.
Subsequently, the finance ministry requested Montserrat’s removal as a matter of urgency and the OECD on Monday, October 22, published an updated list, which no longer includes Montserrat.
