Be­lize's Min­istry of Im­mi­gra­tion has dis­missed me­dia re­ports of var­i­ous scan­dals al­leged­ly in­volv­ing pub­lic of­fi­cers, say­ing it is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Be­lize Po­lice De­part­ment and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

In a state­ment, the Min­istry said that it “begs to dif­fer” with the me­dia re­ports call­ing al­so for a press con­fer­ence, say­ing the au­thor of the ar­ti­cles:

“…is more fix­at­ed on sen­sa­tion­al­ism in the guise of pub­lic knowl­edge than he is on any form of ob­jec­tive truth or in­deed on any io­ta of pure jour­nal­ism that should be premised on truth.”

“We can­not be guid­ed by the same prin­ci­ples, or lack there­of, as we must main­tain a re­al du­ty to in­tegri­ty and high stan­dards,” the Min­istry said.

“In our Min­istry—which falls un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter—our fo­cus must be on a cred­i­ble, care­ful, and com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to cor­rup­tion,” it not­ed, “par­tic­u­lar­ly as it sug­gests a se­ri­ous breach in our se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, and com­plic­i­ty by pub­lic of­fi­cers with­in our Min­istry.”

“Our goal is to end cor­rup­tion in the Min­istry, and with such sen­si­tive is­sues and play­ers with­in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” it stat­ed.

The Im­mi­gra­tion Min­istry added that it re­grets it can­not keep the news­pa­per writer “ap­prised of every move made at the Min­istry lev­el or with­in the Be­lize Po­lice De­part­ment.”

“All in­for­ma­tion will be pre­sent­ed to the peo­ple of Be­lize when it is pru­dent to do so and at a point when dis­clo­sure will not prej­u­dice the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or case to be made,” the Min­istry said, adding that it “re­spect­ful­ly asks” that the writer “do his job and al­low us to do ours in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Be­lize Po­lice De­part­ment and the Of­fice of the DPP.” —BEL­MOPAN, Be­lize (CMC)