By Jolly Green

Today I read the heading “Immunity for sale: Diplomatic passport trade investigated,”

That
heading was from Dominica News. Then I listened and watched a video
recording made by Al Jazeera News Agency, which could be the basis of
sending a lot of Caribbean leaders to prison. I advise everyone to
watch the video below at -
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/immunity-sale-diplomatic-passport-trade-investigated-191125095116871.html

Al
Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has been investigating Caribbean
States for passport corruption and has exposed how the secret sale of
diplomatic passports has helped keep some Caribbean politicians in
power.

Dominica’s
general election takes place on December 6, and the result may be
influenced by payments from wealthy foreigners who want the
privileges of becoming an ambassador.

Some of
you may remember there were unanswered questions about a diplomatic
passport issued in SVG.

Remember
the case of the man Morgan, a relative of the then attorney- general
Judith Jones-Morgan? He was given a diplomatic passport in 2001. He
was not a Vincentian diplomat, he did not work for the government,
yet he had a diplomatic passport. In 2004, he was traveling to a
family affair in the UK. Judith Jones-Morgan was going to the same
family affair but on a different flight. He was caught at a London
airport carrying one kilo of cocaine. Because he was traveling on an
SVG diplomatic passport, he was sent packing back to SVG. A kilo of
cocaine in the UK usually earns you a ten to twenty-year jail
sentence. The man had a Canadian passport and a regular Vincentian
passport, but he chose to travel on his SVG diplomatic passport. He
was not charged in the UK, and when he got back to SVG, he was not
charged for anything here either. He went scot-free, no charges were
brought anywhere. That in mind, in my opinion that was a blatant case
of perverting the course of justice. Perhaps the people who arranged
for, and gave him such a right to have a diplomatic passport should
also have been charged.

Who
issued that passport? I think it was Ralph Gonsalves who personally
arranged that passport. Because I am told, all diplomatic passports
are at his approval. Gonsalves has never denied such, and this matter
has been flying around for years, he has had every opportunity.

Have
other diplomatic passports been issued to non-government and
non-diplomatic persons, and who? We know our UN vote is always for
sale, so how about our diplomatic passports.

We have
had plenty of problems with our passports during the Gonsalves, 18
years in power dynastical prime minister, and leader of the Unity
Labour Party [ULP].

Do you
remember this: while most Caribbean governments seek to pass laws to
stop and deter corruption, it appears that the Unity Labour Party
government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines aims to pass laws
which the opposition party believes will support corruption? The
government is accused of rushing a Bill through parliament that
offers retrospective protection from prosecution for perpetrators
that may have committed what some believe were corrupt or illegal
acts.

The
Office of Audit for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines carried out an
audit of the New York Consulate accounts from August 2011 to August
2013.

The
report was conducted to assess the extent of compliance with
financial regulations and other rules governing the public sector.
This audit came after the stories of a scandal which resulted in the
recall of Deputy of the New York Consul General Edson Augustus, over
alleged visa and passport related matters. And a side business that
he was running that promised to acquire US Green Card status for
Vincentians, many of whom were believed to be illegal’s in the US.

The
report found many discrepancies, including that the official receipt
books for passport payments had been abandoned and private receipt
books used. The Audit Office said that was illegal, and there was no
way that a track of receipts or continuity of numbered books could be
audited or kept track of. There was no monthly expenditure summary to
reflect the expenditure incurred for the period under review, and no
bank reconciliation statements prepared for the operating and
passport accounts for the same period.

The then
Consul General Selmon Walters, SVG N.Y. Consul General in New York,
failed to implement or cause to be executed, recommendations coming
out of the previous audit report, prescribed by finance regulations.
These regulations were not adhered to by the Consulate General Office
for a "significant length of time" during the period under
review, and the Consulate Office "continues to collect passport
fees without the requisite authority."

According
to the Office of Audit in 2013, there were no records of individual
remittances in the Consulate Cash Book, for monies received for
passports. They further reported that they examined records from Oct.
12, 2011 - Sept. 17, 2013, and found "there was no bank
reconciliation statement prepared for the passport account." It
said while transactions dated Oct. 11 and 12, 2013 were transferred
from the existing cash book to a new one, "the balance carried
forward did not reflect the adjusted audited cash book balance.

"It
was observed that the unauthorized receipt books were in use for over
ten months since the receipt books were still in use at the time of
the audit in Sept. 2013," the report said.

The
auditors warned that the use of receipt books other than that
prescribed by the Finance Regulation 2009 "makes the collection
process vulnerable to fraudulent activities. There is no monitoring
of the quantity and sequencing of receipt books to ensure that all
revenue collected is accounted for in the correct amounts." The
report also pointed out that the New York Consulate has, for several
years, been collecting sometimes inflated fees.

The ULP
government has been known to change laws before, to save Party and
Government members from being prosecuted.

They
retrospectively passed an act to collect a departure tax from their
citizens while traveling by ferry from Kingstown to any of the
smaller islands. It was alleged that such a tax was an illegal act.
To save losing a court case, they worked on a new provision to an
existing Bill over a weekend before the court case, to make it legal
for the following Monday when the Bill was read three times and
passed, and therefore no prosecution took place.

Also,
after the 2010 elections, when election laws were allegedly broken,
they again sought to change the law retrospectively, so as those
alleged perpetrators could not be prosecuted. Among the accused were
some of the very top government members.

The Bill
to amend the existing Passport Act was the first Bill listed to be
tabled before the House of Assembly on Thursday 29th May. But other
matters took priority; hence, it is now to be read on the following
Monday.

Despite
concerns being raised by the Opposition Party and many members of the
public, horror was expressed from the Diaspora. 'An amendment to the
Passport Act was slickly before Parliament Monday the 2nd day of June
2014, when it is proposed that the Bill has its required three
readings all in one session. An act that will make a wrong right,
make black white, make inside outside, make bad good, and therefore
no one will pay for robbing the State, if that's what they did.

I
suppose one can wonder why; if they didn't rob the State, and nothing
wrong ensued, why take such drastic terms by bringing this express
rushed Bill before the house of representatives?

Opposition
Leader Arnhim Eustace was quoted in The News newspaper Friday 30th
May, when he described the amendments as "ridiculous."

Saying
they are "very unjust" and could result in certain persons
not been penalized for their wrongdoings.

He said
it is very obvious to everyone that the Bill is designed and to
prevent diplomats from being charged for things that they may have
done in the proceedings of issuing passports from the New York
Consuls Office.

According
to Eustace, he will repeal the Act if the NDP come to power, in the
belief that the government has designed the Bill to protect
wrongdoers.

In
February of that year, the government recalled with immediate effect,
the appointment of SVG's Deputy Consul General in New York, Edson
Augustus.

A
statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 5th,
2014, claims that Augustus was "involved in activities outside
the scope of his duties and inimical to the interest of the Consulate
General and the Government and people of St Vincent and the
Grenadines." Augustus has not been charged with having committed
any criminal act(s).

Below
numbered from 1/ to 4/ are the relevant sections of the Act were
cited as the Passport (Amendment) Act 2014. An Act designed to
protect ULP appointed diplomats.

(1)
Every passport issued for a period of more than five years prior to
commencement of this Act and the regulations made under the principal
Act is declared to have been validly issued.

(2) The
fees set out in the schedule to this Act which were levied, charged
and collected by the Passport Officer prior to the commencement of
this Act and the regulations made under the principal Act are
declared to have been validly levied, charged and collected.

(3) All
actions by the Passport Officer in relation to the issuing of a
passport and the charging and collecting of fees which were validated
by subsections (I) and (2) respectively are validated and declared to
have been lawful and the Passport Officer and every person acting on
behalf of the Passport Officer are freed, acquitted, discharged and
indemnified as well against the Queen's Most Gracious Majesty, Her
Heirs and Successors as against all other persons from all
proceedings of any kind in respect of or consequent on any such
actions.

(4) All
money received by the Passport Officer in payment of the fees
validated under sub-section (2) is declared to have been lawfully
paid to and received by the Passport Officer and the Passport Officer
and every person acting on behalf of the Passpo1t Officer are freed,
acquitted, discharged and indemnified as well against the Queen's
most Gracious Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors as against all other
persons from all proceedings of any kind in respect of or consequent
on the receipt of such money.

September
11th, 2012, the Canadian government revoked Vincentian visa-free
entry into Canada as of midnight. Citizenship and Immigration Canada
(CIC) revoked due to what CIC has indicated is the unreliability in
the authenticity of travel documents. They also said that documents
from Saint Vincent were unreliable because criminals could change
their names and acquire new passports without their previous name
being shown in the new passport. Concerns about human trafficking and
fraudulent travel documents also prompted the Canadian government to
impose new visitor Vincentian visa requirements.

Later in
Saint Vincent hundreds, if not thousands of unissued new passports
were burnt at the Government Print Department at Camden Park, St.
Vincent and the Grenadines. Villagers said at the time the fire was
massive, it lit up the sky. Some citizens later voiced that the
passports should have been mutilated but kept because no one knows
the actual number destroyed, or if any were left somewhere intact, I
suppose they wondered how you could audit a stock of burnt passports.

In 2015
the Iranian government was using Iranians who have Caribbean
passports, and in the case of SVG, the United States said one of them
was a Vincentian citizen. There was a report carried in I Witness
News;
https://www.iwnsvg.com/2015/01/07/gonsalves-denies-iranian-being-monitored-by-us-has-vincentian-citizenship/

Gonsalves
or/and the ULP went to great lengths to deny this, and a ULP swamped
the article with a ‘make a wrong right’ counter-propaganda writer
called Verdical to attack the story. Take a look and see the comments
section, what a panic by ‘Verdical.’ Amusingly the word veridical
means “truthful.” It’s most unfortunate that Ralph Gonsalves is
a self-confessed liar, which makes everything that much more
difficult.

While PM
Gonsalves may consider all these matters closed, we should say no,
they are not. Because we have never had credible reasons or
evidential correction of all the accusations and allegations. We are
still waiting for the truth, credible and believable evidence of the
facts.

Let’s
hope that no Diplomatic passports have been sold, but I can assure
the readers I am doing my best to investigate and bring a further
report to you on this matter.

So
between massive election bribery with building materials, and now
this again, what’s next?

Jolly
Green, passport irregularity hound, and stinker chaser.

c/c the World

END

DISCLAMER: The opinion, belief and viewpoint expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinion, belief and viewpoint of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com or official policies of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com