Unscrupulous intermediaries supplying fake Barbados work permits to some Guyanese
World Cup 2007
By Miranda La Rose
Stabroek News
November 5, 2006
Guyanese are sometimes the victims of unscrupulous paralegals or intermediaries who supply fake Barbados work permits for a fee. They are advised to ensure that their potential employers secure their work permits before they travel to the Caricom country.
Guyana's Honorary Consul in Barbados Norman Faria in a recent interview told Stabroek News there seemed to be a scam going on in the island where intermediaries took money from some Guyanese seeking work permits and then presented them with forged stamps. Some had been taken before the Barbadian courts charged with having fraudulent Barbados immigration work permits stamped in their passports.
Faria said that some may argue that the Guyanese knew what they were doing, but on the other hand the Guyanese might have thought that what they were doing was legitimate. They had paid intermediaries sums ranging between Bds$500 and Bds$600 or else US$300 to get the work permit stamps.
Contrary to reports, he said, the passports were genuine. If the passports had been false, the Guyanese would have been deported, but because they had been travelling with unauthorized Barbados permits they had been taken before the courts and would have to pay the penalty, namely, a prison term.
In sentencing the Guyanese, Faria said the magistrate observed that there was a possibility that some of the immigration persons themselves were involved in the work permit scam knowing the Guyanese vulnerability, while it was also possible that someone could have had a rubber stamp made.
Some of the intermediaries the Consul identified were unscrupulous members of the legal profession, mainly paralegals. "These are predatory elements," he said, "who say they would get them work permits or even residency [and] take their money. When things don't work out for them [Guyanese] they come running to the consulate, sometimes without their passports. I warn Guyanese against getting involved with these intermediaries, including some lawyers."
The policy is that if a Guyanese wants to go to Barbados to work he/she must first identify a potential employer in Barbados - or their relatives could identify one - who would then apply for the work permit. When it is approved then they can travel to the island.
Stating that the country's immigration rules and regulations must be respected, Faria said, "The majority of Guyanese do respect them, contrary to some of the sensational reports in the newspapers and the phone-in talk-shows where almost on a daily basis people castigate Guyanese in spite of the fact that Guyanese residing in Barbados as residents and as contract workers contribute in a significant way to the Barbadian economy."
He has made it a point to tell the ICC CWC 2007 Local Organising Committee in Barbados where the final match of the Cricket World Cup 2007 championship will be held next April, that 35% of the work force at the Kensington Oval consists of contracted Guyanese workers.
In keeping with the mandate of the Guyana government to monitor the work of the Guyanese contract workers in Barbados, he said he had visited the worksite to bond with the workers.
The contribution of Guyanese contract workers to the Barbados agricultural and construction sectors in particular, could not be denied, he said. "I always point out that without contract workers and Guyanese immigrants who have achieved resident status in Barbados, [and] as Prime Minister [Owen] Arthur has said and I reiterate, some of the much needed development projects would not even get off the ground or would be behind schedule."
Barbados too had contract workers who went annually to pick apples in Ontario, Canada, and there would always be some bad apples in the barrel.
However, he admitted that Barbadian contract workers who went to Canada to work on the apple farms or to work in the tourism and hospitality industry in the USA did so on a more organized basis than Guyanese seeking employment in Barbados.
There is the perception among sectors of the Guyanese community at home and elsewhere, that Barbadians did not like Guyanese. "I don't agree with that. I am on the ground talking every day to Guyanese and the ordinary Barbadians. My feeling is that the average Barbadians welcome Guy-anese into the midst of their families. Some farmers even call me, asking me to supply them with Guyanese workers because they have difficulty getting Barbadians to work on their farms. Generally, Guyanese in Barbados are doing well in all professions and in top leadership positions."
However, he feels that there are other organized elements that are pushing an anti-foreign agenda because elections are due next year. He said that these forces are using Guyanese as scapegoats and claiming that they are taking away jobs from Barbadians. "We have to be careful when these elements try to use Guyanese as scapegoats to stir up xenophobia as part of mainstream politics," he said.
His advice to the general travelling Guyanese public, but particularly contract workers, is to make themselves available to the immigration authorities, to the Child Care Board and the labour department. It makes matters easier when dealing with complaints of discrimination and unfair practice, he said.
However, he went on, "If the Barbados immigration authorities have reasonable grounds to suspect that people are coming to circumvent the regulations they have the right to take appropriate action."
Asked about what the consulate had been doing in relation to the number of Guyanese deported regularly from Barbados, Faria said that each case was investigated and while in some instances immigration personnel were found to have erred, in other cases the authorities had denied wrongdoing unless the matter was taken to court. There were cases where passports had been taken away by the immigration authorities and had been subsequently recovered.
Although he did not elaborate he said there was a whole gamut of immigration problems which Guyanese travelling to the island encountered, but these were being dealt with at several governmental levels in Guyana and Barbados.
Faria said that he had briefed the Barbados Chief Immigration Officer during a meeting in connection with a number of complaints about inconsistencies and corruption on the part of Barbados immigration officers.
The Chief Immigration Officer, he said, pointed out that the situation had improved significantly but that stringent measures must still be taken because of the increase in drug trafficking. A number of Guyana drug mules have been nabbed at the airport and of the some 15 Guyanese nationals currently incarcerated in Barbados, the majority were drug mules.
All aggrieved Guyanese who felt they had been wronged by the Barbados immigration authorities, Faria said, could send a report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which would request that the Guyana Consulate in Barbados investigate. In the past some who felt they had been wrongfully denied entry were subsequently admitted based on their cases.