HGP Nightly News – Questions are swirling around a large-scale registration exercise involving hundreds of foreign nationals at the Ministry of Health’s Brickdam compound, with APNU Member of Parliament Sherod Duncan demanding that the Government explain exactly what is taking place.
Duncan said he visited the compound on Monday, September 14, and encountered several hundred people gathered at the location, many of them Spanish-speaking.
Two large tents had reportedly been set up at the compound, while passports were being presented and logged.
But according to Duncan, the bigger issue is what the exercise was actually for.
He said he has yet to see a clear official explanation and claimed that different accounts have surfaced about whether the exercise involves registering foreign healthcare workers or processing national identification and Electronic ID cards.
For an Opposition MP, that lack of clarity is a serious concern.
“The Guyanese people cannot be left to rely on street rumor to understand state operations occurring on public property,” Duncan said.
The exercise has also prompted Duncan to draw a connection to wider questions about the Government’s migration arrangement with the United States involving third-country nationals.
He argued that too little information has been made public about aspects of that arrangement and is now calling for greater transparency.
Duncan was careful to distinguish his concerns about the exercise from the foreign nationals themselves.
His objection, he said, is about how the State is managing migration, registration and national records, rather than about migrants being in Guyana.
“Welcoming foreign nationals must occur within a structured, lawful and coherent statutory framework,” Duncan said.
He warned that large-scale government exercises carried out without adequate public explanation could erode public confidence in state institutions.
Now he wants answers from Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony, Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond and the Government.
Duncan is demanding to know the exact purpose of Monday’s exercise, which government agencies were involved, what documents were being processed or issued, and what legal authority allowed the operation to take place.
He is also calling for Parliament to take a closer look at the Government’s migration arrangements, arguing that decisions involving Guyana’s borders and national identification systems should not operate without clear legal and institutional oversight.
“The governance of Guyana’s borders, public health apparatus, and national identity records cannot be executed in the shadows,” Duncan declared.
