P.U.P. wants full report and a senate investigation

Lisa Shoman

Aside from a report on the investigation in the passport scandal and the purported sale of visas, the Opposition is also looking at another investigation.  Senator Lisa Shoman first presented the notion of a senate investigation into the passport scandal during a special sitting of the senate two weeks ago. She says that an independent inquiry into the debacle will ensure that the sale of Belize’s patrimony can no longer occur.  The invitation, according to Shoman, has been extended to Minister of Immigration Godwin Hulse, who is also the Leader of Government Business in the senate.

Lisa Shoman, P.U.P. Senator

“When we started out hearing about the immigration scandal, we didn’t, any of us, know the full extent of what was going to be found out.  That first day when the prime minister stood up most people thought that the Citizen Kim thing would have been a one-off issue and maybe some people said, maybe ‘ih wah even blow over like wahn lee breeze.”  Well it has not and every single day that has gone by has proven that the rot in the Immigration Department is getting bigger and deeper and it is now a sinkhole that is threatening to swallow the United Democratic Party.  And if we are going to show the world and our nation and our citizens that we are serious about governance then the process has to work and this is why the People’s United Party and the senators, the senators supporting who have been appointed by the People’s United Party have started to discuss with our social partner senators, using the powers and functions contained in the constitution to try to get to the bottom of what is happening in the Immigration Department because this isn’t just going to be just a matter of the police.  But it is going to be a matter of our national restoration to find out A: What is happening.  B: To ensure that this never happens again and C: To make absolutely certain that policies are put in place to ensure that never again anybody would be able to take our national patrimony to take our citizenship, to take our passports and cheapen them, as the party leader has said.  And so two weeks ago I stood up in the senate and I extended my hand to the Leader of Government Business because I wanted him to know that as the People’s United Party we take this as a national issue and I invited the Leader of Government Business to join me and my fellow senators in fulfilling the role and the functions in the constitution.”