Opposition Leader is being disingenuous – Chronicle GM

― Chronicle clears air on advertisement error  

― no ‘people-smuggling ring’ being operated, it was a simple printing error of the Guyana Chronicle

DPI, Guyana, Thursday, April 4, 2019

The Guyana Chronicle cleared the air about a naturalisation advertisement error, which it notes was a simple printing error and is no evidence of a ‘people-smuggling ring’, as being quoted in sections of the media.

“These were simple mistakes which were recognised and corrected”, said Guyana National News Papers Limited (ag) General Manager, Donna Todd. She emphatically refuted claims by the Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jadgeo that the errors in advertisements indicated a ‘people-smuggling ring’ operated by the Department of Citizenship.

The opposition leader on April 3, alleged that the two erroneous publications were evidence of a human smuggling racket and the granting of citizenship, via naturalisation, before house-to-house registration by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

The Guyana Chronicle official pointed out that the first mistake was made on February 4 and corrected on the 6 and 7, subsequently. Another error was discovered on March 27 and amended on the 29 and 30, of the same month.

Todd described Jagdeo as disingenuous as usual, and added, “For the opposition to lay blame at the Ministry of Citizenship is wrong. He should have asked our news outlet, which is the Chronicle, and we would have pointed him to the direction if he did not see any correction. He is being disingenuous”

Guyana National News Papers Limited’s Advertising Manager (ag), Calvin Marks noted that the persons who placed the advisements contacted the newspaper to correct the errors. Marks explained that the information submitted would have been since been amended, “sometimes several things would happen. We have several photographs in the system, several hundred and thousands of file names, stored in our servers. We are already clearing up a lot of the information, so we do not have a reoccurrence.”

The Department of Citizenship and Immigration had no part in submitting the notices. There are also several measures in place to ensure that the information submitted is correct. This is ascertained by fingerprint checks, bio-metrics and background checks with local and international law enforcement agencies.

Paul Mc Adam.

Image: Department of Public Information.