Justice and investment moves slowly, if ever at all, in the failed state of Antigua, unless it suits those who control the real levers of power.
The legal system and the processes of regulation are in place and so some advisory offshore investment websites seem content to inform investors that Antigua & Barbuda can be regarded as a well-regulated jurisdiction.
What these "authorities" overlook is that for their opinion to be valid, the laws of a country must also be universally respected and uniformly enforced. It is at this point that Antiguan reality takes a startling turn away from what constitutes a safe investment environment.
As with most things, it takes "incidents" and "events" to expose the harsh realities of rogue states.
Incidents, such as those surrounding R. Allen Stanford, arguably one of the world's greatest fraudsters and thieves, and his collusion with both political parties of the Antiguan government, bring about a different world view of Antigua from that promoted by the Tourism industry -- the vacation paradise on a tiny, peaceful independent island in the Caribbean.
Events, like the expropriation of foreign owned private property without compensation, such as the Half Moon Bay Resort, accompanied by the sequential abuse of the Constitution and of the legal system to avoid statutory obligations and safeguards, harden anti-investment decisions.
Declaring long-standing investors "Enemy of the State" and ministerial posturing pronouncements like "not a penny in compensation" for expropriated private property, make investment by reputable investors, lenders and supranational agencies questionable to near impossible.
Curious practises in the winding-up of banking institutions, amid the government's failure to re-pay public loans to those same institutions, fuels the unwelcome cocktail.
The persecution of commentators and journalists, who seek to draw public attention to the malfeasance and corruption implicit in current affairs, further poisons the investment pond.
Consequently, it is not surprising that Foreign Direct Investment has been absent from Antigua for a number of years and that the Antiguan Government has turned to lenders of last resort, some more reputable than others, creating financial alliances at a cost which it hides not only from its own people but from its colleagues in Parliament.
Nearly three months after the Financial Services Regulatory Commission announced that it was liquidating the Antigua Offshore Bank (AOB), the matter is still in the hands of receivers, Charles Walwyn and Kathy David.
The Receivers were charged with producing a report within 90 days of their appointment on 13 April 2012, so that transparent information could be provided to stakeholders and appropriate action could be properly taken. That report is yet to be delivered.
Meanwhile, the future of Antigua Barbuda Investment Bank, which was the subject of a July 2011 intervention by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, is also uncertain.
Although, Harold Lovell, Antigua's Minister of Finance and the Economy, outlined his initiative for a recapitalisation bond in his commitment letter to the International Monetary Fund dated 21 May 2012, he neglected to explain the Government's failure to repay substantive loans to that bank and overlooked the claims that it was that very failure that brought about the ECCB's intervention in the first place.
The issue of compliance with the Constitution and with the laws governing the application of eminent domain as it relates to the expropriation of the Half Moon Bay Resort and the Government's non-payment of compensation determined by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal is headed back to the High Court for an order of mandamus.
Undeterred, the GoAB and its Chinese counterparts continue to expand their vision of a new airport facility over land which it is quietly expropriating from Stanford interests. The Attorney General has suggested that the legitimacy of this transaction is based on the value of the "acquired" property against the balance of ostensibly unpaid utilities bills.
Apart from the obvious distinction between the Government and the Antigua Public Utilities Authority, at least two issues associated with this transaction are cheerfully overlooked by the Honourable Attorney General:
The first is any mention of, or accounting for, the unpaid interest owed by the GoAB to both the Stanford Development Company and the Bank of Antigua. To the extent that these sums are substantial and should revert to Stanford Victims, this convenient lapse of memory is particularly telling.
The second is a 3 September 2012 ruling in the High Court that could make documents signed on behalf of Stanford by his girlfriend, Andrea Stoelker, worthless, thereby invalidating over two years of transactions by the Stanford companies and their associates in Antigua.
As an aside, a mystery international lender has emerged to resurrect the resurfacing and extension of the runway at the V C Bird International Airport. The work was originally started a number of years ago, by Brazil's Andrade Gutierrez, before the GoAB defaulted on payment under the contract for work done. It will be interesting to see what reputable lender is willing to become embroiled in this ongoing scandal.
The GoAB's success in avoiding all costs and consequences of expropriation of private property has sharpened its appetite for that particular activity. This has become apparent in its swallowing of several private housing projects that have, for various reasons, "fallen short of expectations", stating that the developing entities "have invited the Government's intervention!"
With the usual lack of detail, it has been suggested that these projects will now be offered for sale to other developers by the Government of Antigua & Barbuda.
Speaking to Caribarena, as reported in its article dated 17 September 2012, Lesroy Samuel, Executive Director of the Antigua & Barbuda Investment Authority, said the Authority was seeking to expand the CAB-I programme. He stated "Right now, it is new initiatives that we are looking at; new investors and financing. There are loads of investors who want to come into the country but they are waiting. Even our own investors are waiting. The funding is not there."
Sascha Mercer, the Authority's Marketing Director, added, "The Authority tries its utmost to create a clear picture for investors looking to enter the local market so that they know what awaits them through taxes, labour codes and economic positioning.
What she failed to mention was the Government of Antigua & Barbuda's unenviable track record of expropriating the assets of private investors, failure to pay interest on funding loans and the ubiquitous manipulation of the legal and regulating processes to its own advantage.
For more on this subject, see: http://www.caribarena.com/antigua/business/business-news/101622-abia-,more-focused-and-aggressive-mercer.html#ixzz26pCPNOKg
Which all leads to the Government's latest tranche of $14 million of Treasury Bills, which have again been oversubscribed, with the majority of bids coming from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, St. Kits & Nevis, and Anguilla.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the new funds are intended to refinance maturing Regional Government Security Market securities to assist short-term cash flow management in the bankrupt country.
Playing games with the legal system, abusing the Constitution, concealing expropriation debt and manipulating assets in receivership, would not sit well around the conference tables of Lenders of Last Resort seeking to help a nation.
So it should be quite unsettling for those institutions to discover that, as with many things Antiguan, all is not as it seems.
The fact is that country risk for any investment in Antigua is high and still growing.
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