Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday accused the Department of Citizenship of “corruption” following the publication of notices for naturalization, where the same photograph of two applicants appeared on two different occasions but with different names and addresses. However, such publications are the responsibility of the applicant not the Department.
The Guyana Citizenship Act, Chapter 14:01 sets out the procedure that an applicant for naturalization must follow. Under the heading, “Advertisement and submission of application”, it states that the applicant has to submit the filled application form and required fee along with two separate issues of any newspaper circulating in the district where he or she resides in which a notice for naturalization was advertised.
After checks, Stabroek News was told that the applicant is responsible for the publication of the notice and not the Department. An applicant can be prosecuted for providing false information.
Jagdeo told a press conference yesterday that, “This is a pattern and it’s happening right before our eyes.” Stabroek News reached out to Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix but was unable to contact him and was subsequently told that he was abroad on official duty.
Alleging that foreigners are being given “fake” documents to influence house-to-house registration, Jagdeo said that Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira, along with other party members, have been doing some research. He said that they have found several instances where inconsistent naturalization notices have appeared in the state-owned Guyana Chronicle and he insisted that these cannot “just be mistakes.”
He shared two samples in which photographs of two applicants, appeared on two separate dates but with different particulars.
Jagdeo shared out copies of the conflicting notices. The first, which was published in the February 5 edition of the Chronicle newspaper, states that Gabriel St. Juste of Burma, Mahaicony is applying to the Minister for naturalization. A photograph was published alongside the notice. On February 7, another notice with the same photograph was published but this time, the applicant was identified as Daniel Garcia Farres of 10-10 Norton Street, Cemetery Road, Georgetown.
In the second instance, a notice published in the March 27 edition of the Chronicle, identified Rubesh Abdus of Lot 0 Tabatinga, Lethem Region 9 as the applicant, but a notice on March 29 with the same photograph, identified the applicant as Hajime Beltran Abreu of Lot 39 Owen Street, Kitty. Stabroek News verified that the notices with the same photographs, but different particulars were indeed published.
According to Jagdeo, he has raised this citizenship issue before and now that the party has gathered evidence, he is hopeful that the International Organisation of Migration, which has an office in Guyana, will look into the matter.
“You have to go and look at the integrity of the entire system about this so call digitisation of our records… now it’s very suspect…because you can easily input anything that is not real,” he claimed while alleging that persons who are not citizens can be added.
According to Jagdeo, this brings into question the integrity of the country’s passport. He reiterated that the PPP has “grave” concerns about corruption given the number of people who are “passing through Guyana.” In this regard, he singled out Haitians and Venezuelans.
According to him, the PPP believes there is a people smuggling racket going on. “We believe that the bulk of the people are being smuggled through Guyana and that within the Department of Citizenship, there is an enormous cesspool of corruption. They are part of this people smuggling racket that is going on,” he charged.
Though he only provided two examples, Jagdeo said that they are a “tiny tip” of the iceberg regarding this “deep dark hole of corruption that resides in the Ministry of the Presidency and the Department of Citizenship.”
He claimed there are many more examples and that the ones he cited, “cannot just be
