Leader of the opposition party, the People’s Action Movement (PAM), Lindsay Grant, is being accused by the ruling Labour Party government for thriving off private land sale deals at the South East Peninsula, which is said to be contradicting PAM’s continued untruthful accusation against the government for "selling off" government-owned land to foreigners.

An official release from the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary stated that "PAM has said on their election campaign that the Labour government was ‘selling off’ prime crown lands to foreign investors, even in areas where ‘not even one square foot of land belonged to the government of St. Kitts and Nevis.’ It must be pointed out that the government does not own and never owned land on the South East Peninsula,

Grant is the major beneficiary in St. Kitts/Nevis, through his law firm, Lindsay Grant and Company, of the skyrocket-priced private land being sold on the South-East Peninsula to foreign investors."

The release further stated that in April of this year, Grant’s law firm facilitated 11 land purchase transactions for foreigners seeking to own land in St. Kitts with a market value in excess of $10 million.

On four of the completed transactions (lodged at the Land Registry) which accounted for 101,501 square feet of land in the South East Peninsular, Grant and Co colected $73,400 in land transfer fees.

"When the other seven title transfer transactions of April 2009 are entered into the court record, Grant’s legal fees from the sale of land to foreigners in that single month will be officially in excess of $150,000," the release claimed.

Grant has made claims that the government was selling land to foreigners "for 69 cents and 75 cents a square foot" while locals have to pay a much dearer price, a claim which the government says is a "blatant lie".

Land at Christophe Harbour (located on the South East Peninsula) is presently being sold for about US$27 per square foot.

Court documents obtained from the Land Registry revealed that four plots of land already sold to foreign investors on the South-East Peninsula by supporters of the opposition party total 101,501 square feet at a price of US$2,720,000.

The opposition party has promoted PAM’s intended policy on the ban of sale of government lands for development purposes to foreign investors on their election campaign.

At a PAM public meeting in Sandy Point (on 29 Jan.), Grant said, "I want to tell you what our land policy is going to be about; no longer, no longer, a foreign entity is going to come into this country and buy 500 acres of the people’s land.

"If they want to develop, they will have to lease the land for development over a long period of time and the land goes back to the people. I want to say to you that we’ve looked and we’ve looked in this country how our lands have been given away in the name of development," he added.

It is being said that with many nationals not aware that the lands at the South-East Peninsula were privately owned, Grant fuelled a public debate and outcry, calling into question the large quantity of land acquired by Christophe Harbour for development purposes.

The government was "selling out the birth right of the citizens of this nation," he said, and lambasted foreign investors as potential crooks of which one has to be extremely careful.

"It is not everybody who comes in here with a briefcase in (their) hand and a smile on their face is a developer, because there are a lot of crooks in this world and we can’t afford for our lands to be put into the hands of dishonest people," Grant said. Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Hilary Hazel, said the government has always had a balanced approached to land development by selling or leasing land.

"Government’s policy has been exercised over the years in that each developer has to present a full comprehensive development plan and proposal. Large acres of land are normally leased as is the practice of the government," Hazel said.