And changing subjects now – we turn to the Immigration scandal. Two weeks ago COLA had a press conference disclosing the major findings of the Auditor General's Investigation into irregularities at the Immigration Department.
Well today, on the eve of what may be their last stand in the private prosecution at Belmopan Magistrate's Court, they released the document to the media. It is a 27 page document dating back to March of this year. We looked at the interesting parts of the preliminary report:
Jules Vasquez Reporting
The preliminary report from the Auditor General notes on the very first page, that they quote, "encountered challenges regarding lack of cooperation." It says the Director Immigration Maria Marin quote, "demonstrated blatant disrespect for my office" End quote.
It goes unto say that she quote, "found ways to evade requests for the accessing or records", and when asked, quote, "she stated that the records were with the minister," end quote.
On page 5 the report notes that quote, "Minister Elvin Penner signed several nationality certificates that were not recorded on the nationality register."
But they were unable to verify the dates because the register was with minister Hulse.
The report has a small compendium of very irregular files.
Five of them – who all got fraudulent passports including one Chinese one Taiwanese one Vietnamese one Turk, and that famous south Korean.
All these files had various irregularities and lacunae – from beginning to end – and all of them were facilitated in one way or another by Elvin Penner.
Consistently, all of them had never been to or lived in Belize before getting citizenship and the report finds Penner backdating nationality certificates.
In two cases he even vouched that he knew the persons.
And in multiple cases, they didn't have pictures or fingerprints.
It's almost consoling that Citizen Kim's file seemed to have the most irregularities – because of course, he was in jail.
But in discussing those irregularities with the head of the nationality section Gordon Wade, the Auditor General's office asked why the Kim file was accepted at all.
He said that Penner brought an incomplete application for Kim the report and highlites, quote, "this is a practice of all ministers to bring in applications for individuals."
That eye-catching remark is reaffirmed later on when Wade again says Penner was told to bring in the required documentation for Kim and the report again highlights quote, "All ministers would do this and return with the documentation most of the time."
The report goes unto say, quote, "According to him (Wade)…it was not out of the norm for any minister to bring in incomplete applications and these would go through on the strength of their promise to bring in the missing documents."
The report adds, quote "He informed us that ministers are still bringing applications even after what happened in September 2013."
And while it's loaded with juicy stuff, COLA's Attorney has said it can't be used in court because it is considered hearsay. That is the reason why they have been lobbying to get the police investigator's file. They go back to court tomorrow morning, and in our next newscast we'll tell you how that went.
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