Last night, we showed you coverage of the latest Senate Hearings on the Immigration Department. You'll remember it as the one in which Immigration Officer Mark Tench made the explosive allegations that former Deputy Mayor Eric Chang and former Belize City Council employee Patrick Tillett bought 8 stolen visas for $5,000 each.
It's the the latest of the revelations about how the business at the Immigration Department was conducted, and it only adds to the notoriety and ill-repute that this embattled Government Department has already garnered.
One of the persons who is tasked with the difficult task of trying to restore confidence in Immigration is the current Minister of State Beverly Williams. She's currently in charge of the Department in a time when the reputation of the Department is taking a banging. And as the Senate testimonies and the Auditor General's report shows, a huge part of the problem are those unidentified immigration officers who were the source or who were complicit in the corruption.
So, is anything being done to weed out those officers who abused the system? That's what we asked her today:
Hon. Beverly Williams, Minister of State/Immigration
"I am in deed looking at the senate inquiry. The report in itself is a guide for us. We are looking on how we can use what was revealed in the audit to build structures, to build on what we have and to develop policies and procedures that will mitigate some of those risk that we had - some of the exposures that are there to plug the loopholes and to develop a system that will go forward in providing quality service"
Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"The audit report and some of the testimony of persons who have gone before the senate have clearly indicated that the Immigration Department is pervaded or infiltrated by corruption. There are immigration officers who are operating in the background to circumvent the checks and balances there. Have you all been able to scrutinize the staff to make sure that they are trustworthy people?"
Hon. Beverly Williams, Minister of State/Immigration
"Daniel, that's difficult to respond in some ways, but I can tell you, I'm not in a position to cast aspersions on any public officer, particularly those in immigration. What is revealed will be dealt with by the relevant authorities. As it is, the systems and structures were are trying to put in place is to just to do - plug those loopholes, develop better policies, better structures, better systems and so that we can avoid whatever occurred and to whatever degree it occurred, building a foolproof system is hard, because corruption is what it is, corruption and so we want to look at how best we put those policies and procedures and I can tell you some of those can happen without cost and so we are looking at that."
Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"But ma'am, no matter how airtight you make the structure and the system, it has a human element that is corruptible and the suggestion is that maybe it's time for the immigration staff to be changed so that new people can come in who you can trust, who can restore that trust of the department."
Hon. Beverly Williams, Minister of State/Immigration
"I cannot react to something that happened before we were there. You may also recall that some of those persons went before the Public Service Commission. So therefore I am not in a position to cast any aspersions on them. They went before the commission."
"We cannot look at public officers and determine that oh you are guilty. We can't do that right. And so we will have to use what we have and unless they are dismissed or they are taken before the commission, we cannot treat them as though they are guilty."
Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"Have you encountered any culture of corruption or culture of irregularity, persons within the immigration department, skirting what are best practices?"
Hon. Beverly Williams, Minister of State/Immigration
"I do not want to say that. I know for me and the director in looking at files in approving nationalities, in looking at PRs, we are to ensure that we do due diligence."
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