Minister Hulse comments on Nationality Report

Godwin Hulse

Minister Hulse also commented on the report compiled by the Department of Immigration on the nationality section. News Five broke the story of the Won Hong Kim report, which was finished more than three months ago on October fourth, 2013. That document makes very specific reference to how the system was compromised, offers a direct link from former Minister of State Penner to the Kim nationality certificate, and also asks questions of two senior nationality officials. Up to the middle of this week, those nationality section officers had still not received the official report, nor had they been asked any questions. We repeat that the report was completed on October fourth, 2013. Hulse seemed less than fully briefed on the matter.

Godwin Hulse, Minister of Labour

“That they answer to certain questions that she put to them as to how certain things went array, files missing and that sort of thing. That is the general gist of it. I don’t have the specific details of her letter and what she asked them, but that is the gist of it. As you all know, and I want to make this point, when the issue first broke, everybody was saying well we are dealing with passports and not the nationality. But that was because the passport document was straight forward and right in your hand. The nationality is a little more complex. We did not have the file and still do not have the file. We do not know where it got to. The ministry had to do a very detailed house inventory in the department to account for all files to make sure they are in drawers where they should be, and locked away etc, etc before you say anything. It is easy to say that a file is missing and then somebody turns up the file and say oh here is the file, probably it was hidden or something like that. So all of that inventory had to be done, that was done. We had locked down immigration, that section for a month, that has been done, everything has been catalogued, audit is in there. But from the ministries point of view and from the department head point of view, she is now in a position to say yes the file is missing etc, etc. You are the ones who took the file initially, whatever file came in. You are the ones who were dealing with it; please explain how it went awry. And that is a fair question.”