Dear Editor,
One of my brothers died on February 5, 2010, in Canada. I have a sister here in Guyana who had to get a visa to travel to Canada. She had the old Guyana passport, which had another few years to go before it expired. The Canadian High Commission in Guyana told her that she must get a new, machine readable passport. So she applied to the passport office in Georgetown.
Owing to the urgency I called the office and spoke to the officer in charge who very politely told me that my sister had to wait 7 working days.
Now I do not know how many persons are aware that this machine readable passport is a Canadian requirement, but could there not be an arrangement in place to have emergencies dealt with? What was worse was that I sent a friend to the Canadian embassy in Trinidad to make use of the ‘same day’ service with my sister’s old passport, and there he was told that the embassy does not do ‘same day’ service any more. How can they be so insensitive to the needs of Guyanese? Are they not aware that a brother is a very close relative and that siblings would like to pay their last respects?
A few weeks later the application was eventually picked up and lo and behold my sister, who had travelled to the USA and Canada many times before was granted a visa – on the same old passport.
The Minister of Home Affairs needs to attend to two things: (1) negotiate with the Canadians so that emergencies can be taken care of; and (2) inform Guyanese of changes in the passport requirement. It is an obligation he has to the people of Guyana and he should not allow us to be toyed with by the Canadians.
Yours faithfully,
Charrandass Persaud
