But what happened to the investigations into corruption at Immigration Dept?

Godwin Hulse

When we caught up with the Minister of Immigration today, he also provided some comment, though little information, on the alleged current investigations into corruption at the Immigration Department. He says that the Auditor-General has the mechanism in place to do a thorough investigation, something that his Ministry cannot do. But there has been some measure of misinformation where investigations are concerned. We say that because there was the explicit understanding generated from the highest officials in the Immigration Ministry that Police had been given carte blanche to check into all corruption at the Immigration Department. And that was not so, which caused us to seek some clarification from Minister Hulse.

Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration

“The Auditor-General has the mechanism and the wherewithal to deh in there and go number by number by number. We noh have that. We noh have that mechanism in the ministry; that’s why we have wah audit department. What they are doing is that. When that comes out and they say, oh four hundred and seventy six visas were issued legitimately, but X were issued under the table. well now that’s a whole different story.”

Reporter

“Have they given any kind of projection as to…”

Godwin Hulse

“The auditor general doesn’t do that. And we won’t pressure them; that will be called interference. The last thing I want is anybody saying I am harassing the police. I noh talk to police yo know. I don’t know who is there. I haven’t spoken to Miss Bradley yet and I don’t wanna speak to her. I haven’t spoken to Miss Marilyn Williams yet and I won’t. Let the thing run its course.”

Reporter

“Sir could you give us an idea of the scope at least of what the Auditor General is investigating? I ask because we were under the impression at first with the police investigation that Minister Penner, they had carte blanche to go and in and check everything. The police cleared that up shortly after by saying—and they have reiterated—that they weren’t even looking, have never looked at immigration department as such. They were only looking at missing files which were submitted by Arthur Saldivar. So that was, in my opinion, misinformation. Can you give us an idea of what exactly the Auditor General is investigating?”

Godwin Hulse

“She is looking at all the issuance of visas, nationality and passports since 2010 to now and procedures and policies and processes, etc.”

Reporter

“Will the auditor general also be making recommendations? I ask because we are pushing through these immigration bills, or they have been pushed through, but wouldn’t it have made sense as was being suggested that we wait just a bit to see the recommendations. I heard some good point today, just as a layman, I heard some good points. Why the rush to push this true instead of just maybe waiting a bit?”

Godwin Hulse

“It is a rhetorical question. If you had come, I answer it already. If you have cancer and your sick, dehn give yo some medicine. Yo know dehn sick. You noh say betta wait till we see when we have wah ultimate cure. We know some of the things that can be corrected. We have not put any hold on interviews; we have not put any hold on amendments. The gun law is a good one—amendments were coming faster than you could think. The same thing can happen. This is another crisis area that the government has not touched for thirty years. We want to reiterate that. If I had customs and land I woulda do the same thing. So the coming, coming. We never said no twenty amendment; we never said this is the final document, we didn’t say this is the end all. We say this is a move in the right direction, let’s roll. And we make no apology for that. We need to roll man.”

And they rolled, right over objections by Opposition senators and Senators representing the unions, church and private sector. As we said, we’ll have those highlights later in our newscast.