Gonsalves now says Ames had an SVG passport

In October 2022, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said that naturalised Vincentian Dave Ames, who has been jailed in the United Kingdom for running a Ponzi scheme as part of which he built Buccament Bay Resort, never had a Vincentian passport.

However, on Monday, Gonsalves said that Ames had a Vincentian passport, but it was revoked immediately after he was found guilty of the charges against him.

Gonsalves’ comments on Monday mean that Ames had a Vincentian passport up to August 2022, when he was found guilty of the charges against him, a mere two months before Gonsalves said he never had a Vincentian passport.

The issue of Ames’ Vincentian citizenship has come to the fore yet again as citizenship by investment (CBI) has become a major talking point ahead of another general election.

Gonsalves and his Unity Labour Party (ULP) are opposed to CBI but the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) has maintained that it would implement such a programme if elected to office.

Vincentians are widely expected to elect a new government by November, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.

At a press conference in Kingstown on Monday, it was noted to Gonsalves that his government had rejected investment by Texan Alan Stanford, who was later revealed to have been operating a Ponzi scheme and is serving a 110-year prison sentence in the United States.

However, the government welcomed investor Dave Ames, who was also later revealed to have been operating a Ponzi scheme and was jailed in his home country, the United Kingdom in 2022 for 12 years for operating a “gigantic Ponzi scheme”.

“There’re two big differences there,” Gonsalves said.

“First of all, when Ames got his citizenship, there was no allegation, when due diligence was done, that he was involved in any — that came afterwards about the pension funds, which were being used to invest,” said Gonsalves, who has ministerial powers to grant citizenship.

“And as soon as his problem arose and he was found guilty, his passport was immediately revoked,” the prime minister further stated, adding that Ames had been associated with SVG for over five years when he was granted citizenship.

Under a 1984 law, the minister with responsibility for citizenship can grant Vincentian citizenship to a person who is of good character, has an adequate knowledge of the English language and has over a period of at least five years made a substantial contribution to cultural or economic growth and development of SVG.

“Now, Vincentians who were born here, they have our passport, they get themselves in difficulty, too,” Gonsalves said.

“… on the one hand, a fella want to select an example which is not on all fours with what is happening here. Ames didn’t get a passport by paying $250,000 upfront to get it, and nobody know anything about him; never come yah, never anything.

“And as the good Lord — as the wheels turn, what Ames did at Buccuma, out of his hotel begot Sandals, where I got 900 people employed there,” Gonsalves said.

Ames used pensioners’ money to build the Buccament Bay Resort, which operated from 2008 to 2016 after the government disconnected the electricity for non-payment.

Ames was later charged with theft and tax evasion but left the country, ignoring a summons to attend court to answer the charges.

“Ames was dealt with under the law in the United Kingdom, and that is that,” Gonsalves told the media on Monday.

“… the NDP tries to muddy the water with things like that. But those things are not citizenship by investment. Those are not selling your passport. That’s not happening,” Gonsalves said.

“There is no law. I cannot sell a passport. If a person acquires citizenship by naturalisation or any of these processes, there’s an administrative fee, and it’s relatively small sum, I think it’s 2000 something. I can’t remember the number but small sum anyhow.”

Ames’ citizenship has repeatedly been a topic of public discussion and Gonsalves has repeatedly found himself being asked questions about his decision to grant citizenship to the now disgraced businessman.

In 2022, when he said Ames never had a passport, the prime minister had said it is not his business not to discuss individual cases of citizenship or what has been done, “unless it arrives at a point which is necessary and desirable to do so”.

He was at the time responding to a question about whether Ames still held Vincentian citizenship.  

“Mr. Ames was never issued a passport of St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Gonsalves had said.

“I have no doubt that he had his own reasons for wanting to be a citizen of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. But he has never had a passport from St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” the prime minister had further stated.

He had further said that under the Citizenship Act, there are several grounds on which citizenship can be revoked.

“Among them, is if you have been convicted of a criminal offence beyond a particular term,” he had said, adding that Ames’ 12-year prison sentence would qualify.

In June 2012, Gonsalves had suggested that Ames had been granted citizenship because of his investment in the country, even as he maintained that it was not economic citizenship.

“I don’t know whether it has crossed some persons minds, but when a person invests substantially in a country, … it is also in some ways helpful for the country itself to give that person citizenship,” Gonsalves had said at a press briefing.

“Let’s say there is a conflict. Foreign government can’t come and say ‘But look at how you are dealing with my citizen.’ And you say, ‘What you mean your citizen? Its my citizen…

“So anybody who cannot see the difference between citizenship granted under the general law and an economic citizenship where you actually pay upfront — this is not a basis of anybody paying upfront for anything, this is a basis of somebody making an important contribution in the country. It is as simple as that,” he had further said.