Public case file
Unmask Antigua is an independent accountability archive for Antigua and Barbuda. It follows the paper trails, broken promises, and daily-life pressure points that keep returning to the same question: where did the money go, who signed off, and what can the public actually prove?
$40M
final sale price
The sale that closed after the higher bid collapsed.
$67.6M
failed Schmidt bid
The abandoned higher benchmark the public still compares against.
19
named subpoena targets
Including Prime Minister Gaston Browne and Minister Maria Bird Browne.
Lead file
When a state says it lawfully disposed of Alfa Nero in the national interest, the public is entitled to see the authorization chain, the first receiving account, the deduction schedule, and where the net proceeds landed in public accounts. The gap between a $100M+ valuation and a $40M sale price is the public-interest question no official statement has answered.
Official position
Prime Minister Gaston Browne has said the seizure and sale were lawful, the proceeds were used in the national interest, and the legal and political attacks are misleading. The government later published expenditure explanations and defended the overall legitimacy of the transaction.
Question still unanswered
Why did the state accept $40 million for an asset valued at over $100 million, and what justification was given for declining the higher Schmidt bid of $67.6 million?
What this file establishes
Evidence trail
Unmask Antigua research packet - March 22, 2026
Alfa Nero Comprehensive Dossier
Local dossier package consolidating the sale timeline, document gaps, and public-interest questions around the Alfa Nero affair.
Unmask Antigua research packet - March 22, 2026
Alfa Nero High-Value Document Targets
Prioritized chain of the missing legal, banking, and treasury records that would most quickly settle the main money and legality questions.
Unmask Antigua research packet - March 22, 2026
Alfa Nero Money-Flow Analysis
Hypothesis-driven breakdown of how the sale price may have moved through deductions, intermediaries, and public accounts.
Start here
Begin with the public asset sale, the subpoena fight, and the missing reconciliation.
Then test the promises
See what the 2026 promises said, what has been delivered, and what is already slipping.
Then follow the fallout
Water, prices, roads, and safety show how weak governance reaches households.
Follow the pattern
Asset sales, procurement questions, and weak oversight keep converging on the same pattern: public money moves, the explanations arrive late, and citizens are left piecing together the trail.
The archive logic
The site is most persuasive when it reads like a case file, not a dashboard. The questions build in sequence: which document should exist, who should have signed it, where the money should have landed, and which oversight body should have answered.
Over 200 vehicles were procured from the Ministry of Works without Cabinet approval, exposing the public to EC$15 million in unauthorized spending. The minister at the centre of the scandal is Maria Bird Browne — wife of Prime Minister Gaston Browne. The car dealer Harney Motors agreed to repay EC$10 million. No independent forensic investigation was permitted.
A growing body of criticism says Antigua & Barbuda's anti-corruption architecture looks stronger in statute than in lived enforcement, especially when politically sensitive controversies break.
Antigua & Barbuda has a Freedom of Information Act, but repeated public disputes suggest the law is still not giving citizens fast, normal access to politically important records.
Fourth-term ledger
The fourth term reset the public ledger. This is where promises stop sounding rhetorical and start becoming measurable in housing, water, prices, roads, and the quality of public disclosure.
7
promises tracked
Every promise in the 2026 Renaissance platform is on the clock.
0
broken or delayed
The promises already showing the widest gap between pledge and record.
7
active watch list
Promises that still need evidence of delivery, not only announcements.
Utilities
Promise
Government said Antigua should reach 24-hour water access by September 2025.
Record
Crabbes production problems and roughly 700 monthly system faults showed that the delivery side was still badly strained.
The benchmark was bold; the system condition remained too weak for a clean handoff into reliable service.
Transparency
Promise
Antigua and Barbuda has formal integrity and disclosure mechanisms meant to protect against abuse.
Record
US-linked criticism and local scandals kept exposing how thin those safeguards can look when records are hard to access and oversight remains quiet.
The legal framework exists, but public confidence still depends on visible enforcement that people can actually see.
Cost of Living
Promise
Temporary ABST cuts and relief measures were presented as meaningful help for consumers.
Record
Housing, food, and transport stayed dominant household pressures even as tax relief temporarily softened some bills.
Short-run relief did not erase the structural affordability problem.
Daily-life fallout
Corruption and weak delivery do not stay in cabinet language. They reach the household budget, the water schedule, the school gate, and the road that has to survive another rainy week.
Pressure in ordinary life
The public concern is not simply whether CPI is lower than last year. It is whether working households can keep up with rent, food, transport, school costs, and emergencies.
Utilities
Water reliability remains one of the most concrete tests of state performance. Production shortfalls, distribution faults, and maintenance gaps continue to keep whole communities in uncertainty.
The government set a clear benchmark for 24-hour water, but plant troubles and hundreds of monthly faults show how difficult the delivery side still is.
Follow this pressure pointCrime
Official statistics have shown some overall improvement, but aggravated robberies, gun violence, and public fear remain potent enough that many residents still experience safety as a deteriorating everyday condition.
Overall recorded crime fell in part of 2025, but aggravated robbery, attempted robbery, and gun anxiety kept daily safety concerns alive.
Follow this pressure pointWhy trust the archive
This site is built to be checked. Evidence tiers stay visible, source material stays close to the claim, and citizens can see where a file is established, contested, or still being verified.
Claims are labelled by evidence strength
Reported, verified, alleged, and under-review claims are kept distinct so readers can see what is established and what still needs proof.
Public records stay tied to the argument
Documents, court filings, IMF notes, CPI data, and timeline records sit next to the claims they support.
Citizen submissions are reviewed before publication
Local reports matter, but they are checked, contextualized, and anonymized when necessary before they enter the archive.
Inside the archive
16
Accountability files
9
Population issues
78
Source citations
4
Broken-promise files
Use the investigations to understand the argument, the issue pages to see the public cost, and the source vault to check the record directly.
Pressure dashboard
These numbers pull the main pressure points into one view: violent crime signals, household costs, water stress, and the promises that slipped long enough for residents to notice on their own.
700+
water faults per month, on a 33% output shortfall
The network-level maintenance burden stayed severe well into 2025, compounded by EC$27M in annual subsidies for a division that still fails to deliver.
EC$93.8M
recovered in Odebrecht bribery forfeiture
Antigua's ONDCP secured this forfeiture from a shell company linked to the region's largest-ever corruption scandal. Two officials were removed. The full list was never published.
19
named subpoena targets in Alfa Nero case — including PM and his wife
US federal court filings allege officials 'corruptly conspired' in the sale of a $100M+ asset for $40M. Named targets include PM Gaston Browne and Minister Maria Bird Browne.
2/4
Freedom House anti-corruption safeguard score (2025)
The weakest governance score in the Freedom House assessment — down from 85 to 83 overall, with corruption requiring stronger safeguards explicitly cited.
Source trail
Antigua Observer • June 21, 2017
Editorial: A promise made
Caribbean National Weekly • September 24, 2025
Antigua and Barbuda reports 14.6% drop in crime, but aggravated robberies rise
Antigua News Room • June 2025
APUA grappling with over 700 water-related faults per month
Antigua News Room • March 2026
Inflation Falls 1.3% in Antigua and Barbuda as Food and Airfare Prices Decline
Absolute percentage change
Overall offences fell, while aggravated robbery and attempted robbery rose.
Overall recorded crime
2,533 offences fell to 2,163.
14.6% down
Aggravated robbery
Aggravated robberies rose from 27 to 40.
48.1% up
Attempted robbery
Attempted robberies increased from 7 to 12.
71.4% up
Jan to Aug 2025 versus Jan to Aug 2024.
Annual price change
Education, recreation, and hospitality costs still rose even as the headline softened.
Education
Fastest-rising category in January 2026.
+13.3%
Recreation and culture
Still rising even in a softer CPI month.
+5.7%
Restaurants and hotels
Hospitality-linked prices remained above the headline trend.
+4.9%
Year-on-year changes in January 2026 CPI reporting.
Timeline read
Big claims, reset timelines, and relief measures returning when pressure is high.
Housing
500 homes / 500 days
By June 21, 2017, Antigua Observer reported that only 48 homes were near completion more than 1,000 days later. The government later kept building houses and by late 2025 said overall output since 2014 had passed 1,000 units, but the original deadline collapsed.
Water
Early 2023 to Sept 2025
The record moved the other way. On December 27, 2024, government set a new benchmark of 24-hour water by September 2025. In February 2025, the Crabbes plant had fallen to about one third of its previous output. By September 2025 a new Shell Beach plant was described as moving the country closer to round-the-clock supply, but even in February 2026 the Prime Minister was still calling service lapses unacceptable and pointing to distribution failures.
Cost relief
ABST 17% to 7%
The government has leaned on temporary ABST relief and seasonal concessions, while official data still show housing, food, and transport dominating household pressure.
Human cost and proof trail
Residents describe the stress in plain language. The source vault keeps the supporting record close by so the emotional truth and the documentary record reinforce each other.
Cost of Living
"The headline says prices eased. The grocery basket, the rent and the bus fare say something else."
St. John's
Utilities
"People stop believing timelines when the outages keep teaching them the opposite."
Villa
Secure intake
Provide documents, links, screenshots, or timeline notes. Anonymous submissions are accepted and reviewed before publication.
International Monetary Fund
VerifiedMacro and fiscal review covering debt, arrears, inflation, tourism growth, and one-off revenue dependence.
International Monetary Fund
VerifiedMission statement noting strong growth but warning that financing needs and arrears still constrain the outlook.
Associated Press
VerifiedAP coverage of the Alfa Nero litigation and the effort to obtain financial records linked to the sale.