7 News Belize

Immigration Minister Holds Forth On Nationality Employees Involved With Kim File
posted (February 17, 2014)
At the Prime Minister's press conference today, we also caught up with Immigration Minister Godwin Hulse. He patiently waited for the media while we interviewed the Prime Minister - and spoke with us after. First, he discussed the two officers from the nationality section who have been asked to answer for irregularities with the Citizen Kim nationality file:..

Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"The director was satisfied that there were enough questions that she needed to ask both Ms. Pacheco and Mr. Wade to respond to. There is a timeframe given which I understand is 2 weeks. As far as I know up until Friday evening a response has come through their attorney saying that there is nothing to answer. That has given the director need to ask the solicitor general to respond to him as advisor to the government that in fact she will now recommend that the case if he so advises goes to the public service commission so they can determine what to do. As you know the public service commission id the entity that deals with all public officers, so the director will say to the public service commission 'I have ask some questions, I haven't gotten a satisfactory response, I now put it in your hands.' I think that where we are with that."

Jules Vasquez
"In your opinion from the evidence you've seen, should Ms. Ady Apcheco and Mr. G. Wade be fired or terminated or recommended for termination?"

Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"Well, this is simply my personal opinion; too much has happen in the department, they are the people responsible and they need to answer how is it a certificate got to the minister for signing, pure and simple. That is the question I need as the minister to hear and answer to: how is it a certificate got to the minister to be signed, who prepared it, who gave it to him and why, with a file that was not complete and with due respect to Mr. Rudon, there was a file. The file was incomplete, it was accepted by Ms. Pacheco was to on Mr. Wade's desk and from there whatever happen happened, so that is the answers we need. Public Service Commission will extract that."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, is this of any personal pain to you because we know that the director had appointed when you were trying to get a grips on the ministry - the director had appointed Ms. Ady Pacheco as the go-between, between the minister's office and the department itself, so then she became a trusted intermediary between your office and the department. It now turns out that she is at least involved in one highly suspicions transaction and being asked to answer for that. Is that of any personal concern for you being that she was you trusted and the director's trusted intermediary?"

Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"Jules I have a lot of personal pain with these things. Let me tell you, if you were at my house last at 1:30, you would have found me working on immigration matters. I have great concern about one fundamental thing; I must work with people, I got to trust people, I can't do all the work myself and when it turns out that somebody that is recommended to me or to the director in whom we put all our faith, not the faith that we put in God of course, but we put faith in the fact that they are doing the work and they are doing it well and they are trusted and it turns out to be otherwise and at this point let me make itt clear: I am in no way saying that she was involved in anything. I am saying she is up for questioning, but if were to be turned out that she was it would be a great disappointment. If fact I have said to the people around me and I will say it again, again and again - if it is my mother, father, brother, sister, I am not going to countenance any kind of wrong doing, any kind of corruption, any kind of wrong dealing with funds or otherwise."

Hulse also explained why the officers from the passport section which issued the Kim passport were immediately put on suspension while it took months to get to those in the nationality section. He explained that the minute the passport was issued for a man in jail, the passport fraud was obvious, but not so fast for the nationality section:..

Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"Those are the questions that are going to answer to the commission: how is it you took the picture of a man who wasn't sitting before you but his picture shows up there. How is it you took application from somebody who wasn't in front of you but you certified that this was the person and how is it you certified all was in order when it wasn't in order. That was easy to do. In the case of nationality it's a lot different and let me run it a little by you: somebody come into the office and applies for nationality, they bring in a file, the file is check - in this case Ms. Pacheco is the counter supervisor of the day. She gives a receipt that says I have received your application and lists on it all the documentation that you brought in. That file then is then pass to the senior supervisor who in that particular case was Mr. Wade. It sits there, a date for vetting us established, a date for interview of the person is established, the file is then sent to the special branch for that sort of vetting. When all of that documentation comes back, the file then goes to the director with a recommendation from the head of the department saying all seems to be in order. The director then does her final scrutiny, clearly she doesn't go out to do the investigation, but she has to trust her officers, then that it then sent to the minister with a copy of a certificate for his signature - if he agrees, because the final decision is his. The file then is returned back to the department, a date is set up for swearing in and all of you are familiar with that fanfare. It is that process that we had to determine where that process fell down. How is it that Mr. Kim has a certificate which all of you showed on television without the director haven't seen a file, the head of department saying well I didn't vet the file and all of this and you had to first of all find the file."

"Ms. Pacheco says well I receive the file, that is all I did and I put it on his desk and how it moves from his desk and who moved it and how it got to the minister and all of that needs to be determine before and that is why that took as long as it did and was not as easy as the passport one."

Hulse's interview was extended and we'll have more from it in tomorrow's newscast.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize