Government is cracking down on visitors and locals alike who present fraudulent COVID-19 documents at the island’s points of entry.
In admitting that authorities had uncovered numerous counterfeit certifications, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced stiff penalties for people caught presenting them.
In the most recent Directive #13, persons found guilty will face up to one year in prison or a fine of $50, 000.
However, when separate legislation is taken to Parliament it will make provision for the penalty to be increased to two years imprisonment and a fine of $100, 000.
At a news conference at Illaro Court on Friday, the Prime Minister did not disclose the number of incidents where fraudulent documents were discovered but she said it was enough for Government to be concerned.
In fact, she said some of the persons producing fraudulent certificates were Barbadians.
“There is going to be a requirement that any person presenting fraudulent documents to any official of the Government of Barbados, whether it be a fraudulent PCR test, or whether it be a fraudulent vaccine certificate, will be subject to penalties within the criminal justice system. I believe it will be subject to a $100,000 fine as well as a maximum of two years in prison.
“Those will be done initially in the directive to cover us immediately but there will be separate legislation brought as well for the avoidance of doubt even though the legislation gives the directive the power of law. I say so because the Minister of Health has already spoken about this and we take this very, very, very seriously. To that extent, we ask persons to note that if you feel that you have gotten past the airport or the seaport with a fraudulent certificate and you feel it’s over, don’t feel it’s over because there is something called post-entry audit. If we find that you have given us a test result that the person or the lab from which it has come cannot verify and cannot validate that you received a test or you received a vaccination then it will be passed over to the right authorities for further action,” Mottley cautioned.
The Prime Minister promised Government would exhaust all efforts with governments with whom Barbados had treaty arrangements, including the US, UK, and Canada.
Mottley said the new legislation was one of the few changes to the directives currently in place, and which are to end on July 27.
While she said the daily 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would remain in place for another two weeks, she announced that non-contact sports would be prohibited during this period.
The PM said while strides had been made over the last two weeks, the country was not yet where it needed to be for a full re-opening.
“As a result of the information given to us by the Ministry of Health we continue to be concerned, but it is not a situation that requires any further lockdown.
We will hold the curfew for another two weeks and the Attorney General has already drafted the directive for me. There are one or two changes in it.
Those involved in wrestling and boxing and martial arts will be permitted to do non-contact training, so there will be no contact within those three sports,” she said.
“I’ve told you always that we will apply brakes and accelerate as required but what we won’t do is overreact and in our view, at this stage, we have enough capacity still to continue as we are doing.
If we ever reach the stage where we have to shut down the country we will do it, but there is no such case, no basis for it.
We have more than enough therapeutics, we have more than enough tests, we have more than enough medical personnel and capacity and we will hopefully be in a position to continue to see the decline in the positivity rate…”
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
