Why did the government never get to the bottom of Minister Maria Bird-Browne’s fake charity that bought the prime waterfront property for her Prime Minister husband’s Pointe FM radio station?
SHARE, Inc. appears to have been registered as a non-profit/charity with Antigua and Barbuda’s Intellectual Property and Commerce Office (ABIPCO), but its bona fide status has been persistently and credibly questioned on multiple grounds. Here’s what the record shows:
Registration Status
SHARE, Inc. was registered as a non-profit/charity under Antiguan company law — it is referred to consistently as a charity in government communications, opposition statements, and media coverage, and it held bank accounts and owned real property in that capacity.
However, a commenter with apparent insider knowledge noted in 2021 that SHARE should have been struck from the company register because the last annual returns filed at ABIPCO were in 2015— meaning it was potentially operating in a legally suspended or lapsed state during the period when it was actively acquiring property and shareholdings.
The Core Legitimacy Problems
Several distinct issues have been raised:
1. Purpose mismatch. SHARE was established to assist young entrepreneurs, particularly women (like Maria Bird-Browne). Critics questioned whether owning commercial real estate and holding a shareholding in a radio station (Pointe FM) bore any relationship to that charitable purpose.
2. The 2015 land deal. Cabinet approved the sale of 10,000 square feet of prime waterfront real estate to SHARE, Inc. in October 2015 for $30,000 — against a market valuation of approximately $1.5 million. The stated purpose of the sale was a “health education and community centre.” Instead, the building became the home of Pointe FM, a radio station founded by PM Gaston Browne, with SHARE as both landlord and shareholder. UPP leader Harold Lovell called the transaction “a rip-off of monumental proportions” and “a fraud”.
3. Suspension in 2017. Gaston Browne himself announced in February 2017 that SHARE had been suspended — not dissolved — citing opposition “nastiness and ridicule.” At that point, its remaining assets included the waterfront real estate and approximately $200,000 across three bank accounts. Maria Bird-Browne had already ceased to be a director by that time.
4. Revival without explanation. Despite the 2017 suspension announcement and lapsed annual filings, SHARE reappeared as an active entity in 2021 — still holding the property, still a Pointe FM shareholder — with no public accounting of how or when it was revived or whether it ever resumed filing returns.
Bottom Line
SHARE, Inc. was formally registered as a charity, but its conduct — acquiring discounted government land under a false-use justification, operating as a commercial landlord and media company shareholder, lapsing in its regulatory filings, and benefiting directly from decisions made by the Prime Minister’s cabinet — gave it the structural appearance of a charity without functioning as one in practice.
No independent regulatory inquiry or formal investigation into its status has been publicly documented.
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