Today in Belmopan, the Senate Special Selected Committee held the 38th session of the Senate Hearings on Immigration, and this time they called Immigration Minister Godwin Hulse to testify.
He has been substantive minister responsible for Immigration from 2012 up until present. That meant that he was in charge of the Immigration Department for majority of the period where Auditor General Dorothy Bradley uncovered the widespread irregularities in that Government department.
Hulse was ready to testify in the Senate hearings for months, but they finally got an opportunity to get his testimony today, and it's a lot to digest.
We start tonight with the conversation that the Senate had with him about corruption within the department. He is the ministerial boss who had to put out many fires after the different immigration scandals were uncovered. So, the Senate Committee questioned him to find out his perspective on this "culture of corruption" within the department.
Here's a part of today's hearings, where Hulse expressed disappointment that the public officers, who he thought were culpable for the Won Hong Kim passport scandal, got off scot free:
Godwin Hulse - Minister of Immigration
"After the Wong Hong Kim mess, when she and the CEO and myself looked at everything that was to be looked at we were clear about some persons we thought should be brought before the public service commission, I will die being clear. And they were brought before the public service commission and they were sent back. I was very disappointed that I was summoned to go before that commission because I could not, for the love of me, see how somebody could sit there and say that they took a picture of a ghost. I could not figure how that could ever happen and I could not see how that could not be so egregious. I could not sit there and see how somebody standing in the chair of the director could say that when they knew- and I am a thousand % certain they knew- that all the processes for the issuing of a passport were being circumvented, including who was to sign and who was to check, they knew that. When that particular person knew, I had said to them if you ever have any problem you call me, and he never called me, and then turn around and say well I don't know and I this and I that. We took them before the public service commission. When I was prepared to go, the commission wrote to me and says: no, not you, you are not to come before us. And then the case, I don't know what happened there, the case was then dismissed and the persons returned to work and they were paid what was withheld from them during their period of suspension. We tried to take other people to the commission, I didn't try because after that warning from the commission it was clear to me that in fact the minister, this firewall was clearly established, and the minister has nothing to do, it's a CEO/director corruption. I would have been happy to say to the commission as I will say here and every other day, I find it terrible that you will sit and tell me that there were officers who knew the work and I have heard officers stand before this committee and say that there were no manuals there were no procedures, that is madness. There is a policy for nationality and PR issue dated July 1st, 2011 which was circulated to every officer in the department, which they knew, which was schooled, which they had clear outlines of the rules, the processes, etc. So, it is ludicrous and wrong to say that there were no policies and they were acting willy-nilly. That is not so."
Mark Lizarraga - Senator, Business Sector
"I thank you for clarifying that because that was raised. Senator Courtney?"
Eamon Courtenay - Senator for the Opposition
"But notwithstanding the policy and procedure, you are aware that there were widespread irregularities?"
Godwin Hulse
"Yes, I'm aware of that now."
Eamon Courtenay
"The question is, isn't this what the Prime Minister was referring to?"
Godwin Hulse
"It may be."
Eamon Courtenay
"You don't know."
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