Gonzales challenges Govt over Immigration corruption claims

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s claims of cor­rup­tion with­in the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion—in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions that for­eign­ers paid up to $50,000 for work per­mits and as much as $250,000 for cit­i­zen­ship doc­u­ments—have trig­gered fresh po­lit­i­cal back­lash, with for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­mand­ing why no ar­rests or charges have fol­lowed if au­thor­i­ties tru­ly pos­sess ev­i­dence of a large-scale rack­et.

Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia that dur­ing his near­ly five years serv­ing on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, re­ports of such a rack­et nev­er once came to light, call­ing the cur­rent al­le­ga­tions “wild state­ments for news head­lines.”

He is now chal­leng­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pro­duce re­sults.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said, “I served on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for al­most five years and can­not re­call any of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies re­port­ing that they have in­for­ma­tion or ev­i­dence of this. But if the Min­is­ter and the TTPS (Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice) have that ev­i­dence, my ques­tion is, how many per­sons have been de­tained for ques­tion­ing and like­ly pros­e­cu­tion? Mak­ing wild state­ments for news head­lines can­not be the ap­proach. Tell the coun­try how many per­sons are de­tained and will be pros­e­cut­ed for this al­leged scan­dal.”

Mean­while, sources with­in the TTPS are cor­rob­o­rat­ing Alexan­der’s claims of cor­rup­tion, con­firm­ing that a deep-seat­ed rack­et has al­lowed for­eign pro­fes­sion­als to by­pass le­gal chan­nels by pay­ing tens of thou­sands of dol­lars in bribes to fast-track their doc­u­ments.

How­ev­er, po­lice sources said the Min­is­ter did not un­earth a new scheme, nor is it as mas­sive as he is mak­ing it out to be.

Over the past three to five years, the TTPS An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­tiga­tive Bu­reau and the Fraud squad, which form part of the White Col­lar Crime Di­vi­sion, have been in­ves­ti­gat­ing an on­go­ing op­er­a­tion with­in the Work Per­mit Unit, Guardian Me­dia is told.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, this has been an open se­cret among high-rank­ing of­fi­cials for years, in­volv­ing main­ly pro­fes­sion­als such as se­nior en­gi­neers who have worked on ma­jor state in­fra­struc­ture projects like the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) and busi­ness­men from Chi­na and In­dia who were able to get three-year work per­mits.

The scheme of­ten comes to light dur­ing re­new­al pe­ri­ods, when for­eign na­tion­als re­turn to ex­tend their per­mits and au­dit checks re­veal dis­crep­an­cies. While ap­pli­cants may pos­sess phys­i­cal doc­u­ments that ap­pear to be le­git­i­mate, the Min­istry’s data­base some­times shows no of­fi­cial ap­proval was ever grant­ed for them to work in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that, de­spite years of in­ves­ti­gat­ing, few ar­rests have been made as the po­lice say probes of­ten col­lapse be­cause ev­i­dence is de­stroyed from in­side the Min­istry, while for­eign sus­pects of­ten flee the coun­try.

At­tempts to con­tact Alexan­der, as well as for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters Fitzger­ald Hinds and Stu­art Young, were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.