The Story within the Story…An e-visa system and rubber stamps

Mar 12, 2017 News

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By Leonard Gildarie

The current investigations into the Pradoville Two scheme last week, along with the arrest

and questioning of a number of former Government officials from the Opposition, completely overshadowed a major piece of news that bodes well for this country.
Guyana last week received a report that the Policy Recommendations and Guidelines for the Setup of an Electronic Visa (E-Visa) and Work Visa System, which will eventually aid in the implementation and development of a modern visa issuance policy and system.
This is both timely and much needed.
I see a major migration problem in coming years if we don’t move now.
We are referring, of course, to our current lax immigration system. Coupled with deep-seated corruption at what was known as the Ministry of Home Affairs (now Ministry of Public Security), it is a wonder that we have managed to somehow remain unscathed.
We have major challenges. Our borders are largely unsecured and terrain so huge and unfriendly that it is nigh impossible to properly secure them.  We have to find some other way, maybe the use of technology.
On Friday last, Minister of State Joseph Harmon disclosed that Berbice a facing a strange problem. It appears that a number of persons from Suriname have been journeying to Guyana to use our hospital in Berbice. A recent visit by Parliamentarians to New Amsterdam found drug shortages at the hospital there. We have many Guyanese living in Suriname, so it could be a situation of many of them coming back.
Guyana is one of the few countries in the world where the state is running free education and health care. It is by no means cheap, with drug purchases and allocations to education representing major chunks of the national budget.
There are hundreds of illegal Brazilians working in our gold bush. I am not sure how they entered – whether legally through the Takutu River bridge which links Guyana and Brazil, or illegally through our unmanned borders.
We don’t have statistics, as this has been an area that authorities have been cagey about reporting. I believe that they don’t even know. We have reports of mines officers turning a blind eye and allowing illegals to work in the gold camps.
Venezuela is currently facing a crisis, where shortages of food and basic commodities have driven our continental neighbours to take desperate measures, including rummaging in garbage bins for food. A few of them were charged here for illegally entering and were sent back.
We know of countries battling migration problem and taking tough measures to handle it. Take Trinidad and Tobago for example. They have been benching Guyanese and putting them on the next flights back home. Barbados has been tough too. Never mind the CARICOM rules of treatment of our neighbours.
Ironically, it is both of these countries who ran to Guyana to buy our foreign currencies when they ran out.
Let us not even talk about the US and Canada. The new US President, Donald Trump, is even thinking about building a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants. The point is that these countries have the right and obligation under their laws to protect their borders.
In the US, a normal traffic stop in the streets can allow a cop to determine the history of a person, from traffic tickets issued to even an arrest warrant and drinking and driving charges.
We have to start moving in that direction. It will by no means be cheap or easy to implement.
I managed to make contact with Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix, yesterday, and he made it clear that the work involved in ensuring that we have a proper visa and work permit system in place will not happen overnight. The issue is much more than simply workers searching for a better life in another country. It involves human trafficking, trans-national crime and irregular migration patterns, Felix said last week.
”Every now and again we are encountering foreigners presenting their passports with bogus Guyana stamps. How long must we contend with a situation in which our immigration system is easily defrauded? And once we recognise fraud intervening into a legitimate system, it is our duty to make sure that we protect it against fraud, so that genuine travellers would understand what is available and be able to use it without fear of holding on to something that is bogus.”
With several foreign companies working and about to come here with the discovery of oil, the move to improve the visa and working permit system will take even more significance.
It has been reported in the past that significant monies were passed at the Ministry of Home Affairs to process work permits and visas. There have even been cases of fake rubber stamps being used to make visa letters. I know that my late colleague at Kaieteur News, Dale Andrews, was investigating the problem.
The Delegation of European Union has noted that an improved system will help to properly screen, vet and set the policy straight for the visitors as well as the airlines.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Regional Coordination Officer for the Caribbean, Robert Natiello, explained that the process of emitting visas is an important part of ensuring the regular and orderly migration process.
”When we have irregular migration processes, we have seen that this opens up migrants to many vulnerable situations, and they can fall into situations of human rights violations, Trafficking in Persons and smuggling of migrants.”
With oil on the horizon, we may potentially face problems with workers flooding our shores. It will not be easy to monitor. So yes, this is positive news.

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