And - as if he needed any more stress - the Prime Minister is also the Minister of Immigration - a notoriously difficult ministry where it seems there's always a hustle going on. And, another one has appeared. We told you about it last night - where some staffer or staffers at the Belize City office tricked the system by creating fake revenue collector receipts for new passports. They put these into the system, pocketed the cash, and the receipts went through for new passports, which were issued, based on the strength of that fake receipt. So, government lost out on that revenue - and reports are that so far no one knows how many of the fake receipts were processed. They also don't know the extent of the fraud - and if it was confined to fake receipts.
It's a major mess with Belize's apex nationality document. Today, the Prime Minister who has a hot one on his hands less than month after taking over the portfolio said they'll get to the bottom of it:
Reporter:
"What can you tell us about what is being viewed as yet another blunder where the where the Ministry of Immigration and passports is being concerned?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think it's really a stretch when you're calling it a blunder because I don't see how it can be a blunder, the point is that as soon as the Ministry was aware of it, it acted. now I can't go into details because obviously it's still under investigation but I can assure you that if there is any wrongdoing that has been done and we get enough evidence, we are going to act on it immediately. What I can add to it as you probably know is that the individual has already been removed for 30 days while the investigation is going on."
Reporter:
"Does it come as a shock to you, this somewhat of a black eye for a ministry that we've been trying in all kind of ways to get under tight control?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think I would want to look at it slightly different than a black eye, it is showing that our ministry will not continue to tolerate that kind of behavior from our officers and that whenever it comes to our attention we're going to act. Remember it's human nature that we're dealing with here and as much as we put the proper processes in place, people that want to do something wrong, they're going to try to be as creative as they possibly can to be able to, in this instance I believe, to defraud the government in this case in the Ministry of Immigration."
As you heard, the supervisor from the Belize City office is on administrative leave pending investigation.
