The Government of Guy-ana is making efforts to tighten screening at Guyana’s ports so as to stymie what appears to be efforts to use Guyana as a “conduit” to illegally access other countries.
This is according to Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix, who yesterday told reporters that Immigration Officers have recently denied entry to nationals of Haiti and the Dominican Republic be-cause they were not in possession of visas and had insufficient funds.
Felix revealed that on Wednesday seven Haitians arrived and were refused entry. “They were refused entry because they had insufficient funds and no one was there to receive them.
They said they wanted to stay for two weeks but I don’t know how they could do it when the highest amount of money any of them had was US$200,” he said.
He added that two weeks ago three travellers from the Dominican Republic were also denied entry.
Though they had a little bit more money, they did not have enough to support their stay at their preferred hotel, the Princess Ramada Hotel.
When asked if any enquiries were made about whether the persons were in possession of electronic cash, such as credit or debit cards, Felix claimed that Guyana is currently unable to authenticate these means of payments.
“Those are subject to serious irregularities in the form of fraud. You can’t, with our technology here, vouch for anybody giving you a debit card. What happens if it is maxed out? How do you associate the person with the credit card as being the rightful owner? These are issues we have to be careful with,” the minister claimed.
He also shared information about a Syrian who arrived in Guyana after securing a visa at Guyana’s mission in Brazil. According to the minister, this individual later left Guyana for St Kitts and Nevis before travelling to Montserrat, from where he was deported to Guyana.
This, according to Felix, is an illustration of a trend where “a number of people seem to want to use Guyana like a conduit towards getting to other countries through illegal means.”
Meanwhile, according to the minister, the issues in relation to illegal entry appear to be associated with certain airlines.
“We don’t have any problems with the regular established airlines. It’s just the airlines that have become well known for this kind of thing,” Felix said.
He explained that he has been in discussion with representatives of some of the culpable airlines and these discussions have produced a document which will be shared with Minister of Tourism Cathy Hughes. It is expected that the Minister of Tourism will disseminate these guidelines about immigration procedures in Guyana.
Felix stressed that while these procedures are already well known, the government will be making efforts to ensure that new airlines are notified that these are the requirements.
He explained that this is the first of several efforts that will be made to curb irresponsible entry.
“At first you try education to convince persons to avoid certain wrongdoings.
Thereafter, with another ministry, we will have to talk about possible sanctions,” Felix said.
He noted that the country’s borders are wide and unpoliced thus, “We have to tighten up our watch at the ports to ensure that we do not allow our country to be misused.”
