Auditor General’S Report On Immigration Scandal Submitted To Pm And Minister Hulse

<p><strong style="font-size:13px;"><a rel="nofollow" class="highslide" target="_blank" href="http://edition.channel5belize.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Auditor-General-Report0001.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-98600" title="Auditor General Report" src="http://edition.channel5belize.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Auditor-General-Report0001-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225"/></a>Can you say cover-up at the highest levels of government? Well that’s just how it’s looking tonight. Last year, the Auditor-General was brought in to investigate corruption in the Ministry of Immigration. But there is confirmation that the Auditor-General finished her preliminary report in March and that copies of that report were handed over to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Immigration on March twenty-first, 2014 – that’s seven weeks ago. The news didn’t come through official channels, but was revealed as a side-note at a COLA press conference held today. We’ll have the details of that briefing a little later, but first the report. In a letter to COLA dated March twenty-eighth, 2014, Auditor-General Dorothy Bradley states that, “the preliminary report was submitted to the Ministry of Labour, Local Government, Rural Development, NEMO and Immigration and Nationality and the Office of the Prime Minister on March twenty-first, 2014.” She further reiterates that the preliminary report “was submitted to the Minister of Finance who, in the case of Belize, is also the Prime Minister…” Interestingly, on March twenty-sixth, one week later, in an interview with News Five, Minister of Immigration Godwin Hulse makes no mention of the report. In fact, he told us that the Audit Department was still in there, doing its thing.</strong></p>
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<div id="attachment_98601" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width:160px;"><a rel="nofollow" class="highslide" target="_blank" href="http://edition.channel5belize.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Auditor-General-Report.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-98601" title="Godwin Hulse" src="http://edition.channel5belize.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Auditor-General-Report-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Godwin Hulse</p></div>
<p><strong>Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration [File: March 26, 2014]</strong></p>
<p><em>“The audit department is in there doing their thing to look at procedures, etc., etc. they are coming shortly I guess to a conclusion and of course the ministry was in there also sorting out all the nationality files, sorting out all the permanent resident files, sorting out all the passport files so that these people could work. Immigration is a huge department. I will not hide and say that all honkey dorey in immigration at all. A lot of hanky panky has happened in immigration and perhaps continues to happen, but we are intent on cleaning that up.”</em></p>

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