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Published On: Mon, Mar 13th, 2017

Rotten to the core

It’s not like the authorities that are supposed to control the functioning of the immigration services were not warned that the people who work in that department are susceptible to bribery.

After all, we have a case dating back to 2007 when three immigration officers were punished for taking bribes and letting people into the country who had no right to be here.

Not much later the head of immigration, Marcel Loor, and Chief Commissioner Derrick Holiday were also dragged into court for immigration violations.

If you leave a door open, somebody is bound to walk through it. Right now we have six suspects in the Ostrich-investigation – four of them immigration employees, one attorney and one who is a partner of one of the immigration officers.

To say that the immigration department is rotten to the core may sound harsh, but what other conclusion does justice to this situation?

The suspects in this case deserve a fair trial and appropriate punishment –a matter for the court to settle.

More important is how the justice ministry will organize the work of the immigration services from here on forward. The ministry will have to put mechanisms in place to put this house in order.