Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Ghan­di-An­drews yes­ter­day re­fused to an­swer ques­tions on the let­ter the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty sent to her di­rect­ing bor­der ex­emp­tions for Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez and her del­e­ga­tion to en­ter T&T for a meet­ing on COVID-19.

“You know I would not be able to an­swer any ques­tions about that. I would di­rect you to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the com­mu­ni­ca­tion unit at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” Ghan­di-An­drews said be­fore dis­con­nect­ing the call.

The let­ter, dat­ed March 26 and signed by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (HR) Gary Joseph, has been wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia be­fore Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young con­firmed it was au­then­tic.

Young post­ed a state­ment about the let­ter on so­cial me­dia Thurs­day and when asked about it yes­ter­day, he re­it­er­at­ed the con­tents of the same post, au­then­ti­cat­ing the let­ter.

“It has been some­what sur­pris­ing to me how some have con­ve­nient­ly twist­ed this let­ter in a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to mis­lead the pop­u­la­tion and un­der­mine the facts that have been out­lined by the Prime Min­is­ter and my­self,” Young said in the re­peat­ed re­sponse.

Young said the let­ter to Ghan­di-An­drews is con­sis­tent with what both he and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley have been say­ing all along; that the mat­ter was one han­dled by the pub­lic ser­vice.

“I stat­ed that I grant­ed per­mis­sion for Ex­ec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go. Once the ex­emp­tion to en­ter is grant­ed, as was the case with Vice Pres­i­dent Ro­driguez, the pub­lic ser­vice deals with the de­tails,” Young said.

“I was not aware of the com­po­si­tion of the del­e­ga­tion or the air­craft that would be used. Those de­tails were han­dled by the pub­lic ser­vice as is al­ways done.”

He did not re­spond to sub­se­quent ques­tions about whether the del­e­ga­tion re­mained on board the air­craft or were all es­cort­ed to a room at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s.

But for­mer di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, yes­ter­day said the buck must stop with the min­is­ter.

“I would think that in some of these cas­es, if not in all of them, that when you have the vis­it of a Vice Pres­i­dent or some­one of that lev­el, the per­son said they are com­ing with a del­e­ga­tion, the min­is­ter would give a blan­ket ap­proval,” Gon­za­les said.

“He may not have looked to check in any de­tail who and may have left it to the PS to im­ple­ment it.”

How­ev­er, he said a gov­ern­ment must al­ways be con­scious of whether they are deal­ing with a regime that is fac­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions.

“I think you have to be very care­ful and the PS or who­ev­er is deal­ing with it, if the min­is­ter is not look­ing di­rect­ly at it, you would have to pay some at­ten­tion,” he said.

“Even if the min­is­ter did or did not ap­prove that, it is up to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to check it to make sure that the coun­try is not vi­o­lat­ing any in­ter­na­tion­al treaty.

“Some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to do their home­work and they ad­vise the min­is­ter ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. How­ev­er, in any case, the buck stops with the min­is­ter. What­ev­er prob­lems oc­cur down there, the min­is­ter has to take the fi­nal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”