For weeks, COLA has been exhausting all official means to get their hands on the Auditor General's report. They say that they need it for their private prosecution against Elvin Penner for the Citizen Kim scandal. The met nothing but refusals and closed doors, but the activist group announced today that they've finally gotten a copy; though this one was leaked to them.
A statement released from COLA, says,
"The Report establishes that Penner did not act alone, that there was a ring of selected Immigration officials and trusted private citizens who engineered the systemic abuse of the process to manufacture Belizean passport and nationality certificates for several undeserving, unqualified individuals, including Won-Hong Kim." End quote.
More dramatic than that, COLA continues by saying that the Auditor General's report also found that Won Hong Kim was but one of the many clients who were facilitated to get fraudulent documents from the Immigration Department. They say, quote,
"The Report is clear that specific, and prosecutable, offenses may have been committed many times over by Penner. It also establishes that he had the assistance of high-ranking officials inside the Immigration and Nationality Department. He also depended on certain others both inside and outside the Department. In toto, the Report establishes that there are many other cases of irregularities within the Immigration and Nationality Department...that the corruption and wrongdoing extended far beyond that single case."
But, regrettably, not keeping up with the truest tradition of letting leaks flow to the press, COLA is doing the same thing that those they criticize did: they are keeping the report to themselves. Except in this case we suspect it is media manipulation more than information control. And, tru to form, President Geovannie Brackett has scheduled a press conference for Thursday, when COLA will discuss what the Auditor General's report means for the Penner Prosecution.
That press conference will come a day after one being held by the Prime Minister. He's holding his first formal press conference in months at the Radisson tomorrow. He is expected to discuss infrastructure works in the city and the political future of Mayor Darrell Bradley.
