Immigration Systems Need to be Digitized

The problem that the Immigration Department has with the current system is that it is not digitized. Moving forward, Immigration Minister Eamon Courtenay says that the system will be digitized to avoid a recurrence and prevent fraud. 

Eamon Courtenay ,Minister of Immigration: “One of the beauties for example of the new passport system is that it’s totally digitized and obviously we are digitizing other areas and this is one area that will have to be digitized and we will just have to put in place systems that as best as is humanly possible are fail safe. You see – I said I wasn’t going to get into details but when records are entered manually in writing if I have no reason to go and get that file you could go in there and put something and issue a card and that file just remains in the records room so there is no way for us today to say there are ten more files or twenty more files we have no reason to go and pick up every file and go through it and see whether everything that is written in there. Now with the current passport system a citizen Kim situation just simply cannot happen again because the system itself doesn’t allow you to move from one stage to the next until certain things are done and completed, picture taken, finger printing etc. So for other aspects of our service that we deliver to the Belizean people we will have to digitize and try to put in place that type of system.”