Few deportees using social services
-Shadick
Stabroek News
November 12, 2002
Only a small number of the deportees who have called on the Ministry of Human Services have requested financial assistance, says Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security Bibi Shadick.
Shadick told Stabroek News yesterday that of the 100 or so deportees only about ten of them requested financial assistance to acquire tools of their trade or to get started in some economic undertaking.
The majority of those visiting the ministry just wanted a listening ear or advice on how to obtain a national identity card or a passport. Up to last month 268 persons had been deported to Guyana from North America, Europe, the Caribbean, French Guiana and Suriname in the last eleven months. This figure was based on information supplied to the media by the Police’s Criminal Investigation Department.
The deportees were returned here after serving sentences for various crimes some of them violent or drug related.
Shadick said in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing, a few of the deportees were assisted to obtain house lots as they had returned with funds to build a home.
The government is concerned that the influx of deportees from North America, including some persons who no longer have any family ties in Guyana, places an unbearable burden on its law enforcement and other related agencies.
It is negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the US government on the procedures for returning Guyanese nationals as well as assistance in helping them to reintegrate themselves into the society. Monitoring the more dangerous of the deportees is also a critical issue.
Based on an analysis of the information they have gathered the police blame the deportees for contributing significantly to the present crime wave.
The University of Guyana is proposing to conduct a multi-disciplinary study on the political, economic and social impact of the return of Guyanese criminal deportees.
