Teixeira fingers Fmr COP Winston Felix in ducking passport scams

BY EDWARD LAYNE

Home Affairs Minister under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic during 2005, Gail Teixeira, has said that then Police Commissioner and now Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix, failed to act on an investigation, which revealed that there was a massive scheme at the General Registrar’s Office, where birth certificates were being issued with information of persons who did not exist.

Teixeira’s comments came in face of a “malicious” report in the State-owned daily newspaper, the Guyana Chronicle, with allegedly twisted facts about a conversation between US diplomats in Guyana and Teixeira, which was released by WikiLeaks.

The cable claimed, among other things, that Teixeira during a meeting with the then Charge d’Affairs in the US Embassy in Georgetown, Michael Thomas and several other officials expressed genuine displeasure with improper or unlawful issuance of Birth and Marriage Certificates and spoke of attempts she made to address the situation with the General Registrar’s Office (GRO), as well as the issuance for Guyana Passports with fictitious information.

Visas, immigration, false documents

She said her conversations with Thomas was in the context of “Visas, immigration, false documents.”

“The issues that were raised in particular this occasion was referred to in the Chronicle yesterday (Tuesday), the present Minister of Citizenship was the Commissioner of Police when I was Minister of Home Affairs and we were inundated by reports from the US Embassy of fraudulent passports, fraudulent birth certificates and please remember, immigration under the law comes under the Police Force,” Teixeira explained.

She added that there were discussions over the General Registrar’s Office, which came under the Home Affairs Ministry, and the issuance of Birth Certificates.

“The American Embassy was asked by me to please provide evidence of these fake documents. The GRO ones were particularly disturbing because they were actually authentic birth certificates, with the watermark of the GRO, with the signatures of people working at the GRO, but the information on it was false. Those persons don’t exist, who were written in having birth certificates and from that false document it then created another false document, fake passports, in the sense that the passports were real, they are genuine, but the persons on it were not real and it was that evidence I asked for from the Americans,” she explained.

The former Home Affairs Minister said this information was forwarded to the Winston Felix-led Police Force for criminal proceedings, but despite investigations, no actions were taken.

“There were several Police investigations under Mr Felix as Commissioner of Police, investigations were held and a number of persons in the GRO… recommendations were [made] to charge them and send them home, however the Police under Mr Felix stewardship did nothing, did nothing,” Teixeira revealed.

Mr Felix has since said he has no recollection of any information passed on to him. Another former Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj, has also reportedly filed a lawsuit against the Government-owned Chronicle and the former Minister Teixeira, who succeeded him, for hearsay statements in the WikiLeaks cable.

Fake Marriage Certificates

The former Home Affairs Minister said too that the Americans produced fictitious marriage certificates issued by marriage officers who were performing marriages to persons who were not together in the room at the same time when they got married.

“One marriage officer was removed because he was one of those signing marriage certificates for marriages which one person or no person was in front of him and we had evidence of that… The comments that were made with regards to a number of people such as the corruption to do with the Chinese work permits and Brazilian work permits was stated in that meeting. Mr Thomas’ other comments as I said Police investigations went absolutely nowhere, because immigration falls directly under the Commissioner of Police and under the Police Act,” Teixeira lamented.

Teixeira believes some of what was contained in the Guyana Chronicle report was inundated with personal assessments and view of US Embassy Officials.

“Some of the things that are quoted in the Chronicle are quoted directly from what are Mr Thomas’ own views and are not quoted from what I said. The way the Chronicle article is written is as if certain things which are the Charge d’Affairs opinion is being put over as if I said that… I did not,” Teixeira declared.

Teixeira pointed out to several inaccuracies in one of the cables which alleged she had discussions with Embassy Officials on the appointment of Henry Greene as Police Commissioner.

“For example, it said we had a discussion on Henry Greene’s suitability as Commission of Police on December 23, 2005. This never took place. In 2005, December, Mr Felix was the Commission of Police and that at no point was there any discussion as his retirement will come up in June/July of 2006. The issue of the Commissioner of Police is the prerogative of the President and therefore there will be no inclination on my part unto getting into such discussions,” she further explained.

She reiterated that some of the other cables which were released had to do with the crime wave and the handing over to her of taped conversations which were given to the US embassy by Roger Khan.