Ziua, Romania
By George Damian
Yesterday due to the revealing of the UK daily newspaper Evening standard the scandal on UK visas for Romanians started again. The newspaper showed that the UK Government has been informed on accepting the files of some Romanians for jobs such as social assistant, although they lacked qualifications.
Evening Standard is quoting documents showing the Government was warned 19 months ago and that as social assistants in children care were admitted Romanian citizens with no qualifications. Moreover, some of them didn't even have enough good English.
A 2,6 million pounds business
Among the admitted Romanians there are persons who in Romania attended UK organized training for officers in charge of condition freed detainees. So the UK Officials spent 2,6 million ponds on their training.
The officers presently applied for a job in the UK social system. This was mentioned in a report in 2002, June 30. The author was Roger Shaw and he sent it to the Department for International Development for which he worked. He warned that the issue of officers going to UK as social assistants was "worrying", as it could lead to serious critique, involving the department in case "something bad happens".
This assumption was quite credible to the British clerk, as immigrants lacked appropriate qualification.
The Spokesman of the UK Department for International Development confirmed he had received the report written by Shaw and specified he didn't know if the document had been released by the Ministry of Health.
Roger Shaw declared for The Evening Standard that the visas for these Romanians had probably been emitted on incorrect information. He didn't exclude the possibility that they could have taken advantage that visas were not usually denied to those proving by documents they has a sure job in Great Britain.
Extraordinary meeting of the Blair Government
Yesterday UK PM Tony Blair was chairman of an emergency meeting of the Government on the crisis caused by the immigration issue. They were to decide on getting control of this system.
The UK Government meeting tried to decide whether the scandal had been partially caused by PM Blair's target to reduce to 50% the number of exile requests, The Independent informs.
The meeting held on Tuesday was attended by the Minister for Internal Affairs David Blunkett and other ministers, along with chiefs of secret and security services.
Some members of the UK Government admitted Blair's promise to reduce exile requests might have wrongly contributed to slackening immigration rules.
Ministers think the responsible members in The Immigration department slipped the way these rules were used, because the Government mainly focussed on the exile issue.
One Romanian citizen revealing visa mechanism
A Romanian citizen who got to UK by false papers presenting him as building workers revealing the way he reached London, by using the same method of other Romanians. From each of them he got 1,000 pounds, is reported in the evening edition of the UK daily newspaper The Sun.
25 - year old Daniel Iftode introduced himself as building worker in front of UK Officials, but he now admits ha has never touched one brick. Despite it, he got a business visa and started a new life in UK, pretending to be manager of a building company.
Experiencing this and noticing UK control on immigration was not severe, he decided to help other Romanians to get to London by the same means. He was also the one to draw fake business plans and complete bank and tax forms for non-English speaker Romanians.
Iftode is claiming that in crimes committed by illegal immigrants to UK are also involved specialists in bank card frauds and also mob leaders, some of them having even got consulting from UK lawyer companies. He showed proves of the immigration officials' carelessness.
Last week it effected in the resignation of Minister Beverly Hughes. "I have got no experience in building, but it was very easy for me to come to Great Britain pretending to be manager of a building company. A few days I tried to earn my living as worker, but I didn't know how to do it. So I decided to help more Romanians get to UK and ever since then I have earned a lot of money. It's a way to make a living", he says.
By elaborating requests you can earn a lot of money
Now living together with other Romanian immigrants in Queensbury, north London, Iftode stated that for a short while he had worked as interpret for the lawyer company MJ Solomon and Partners, a company specialized in immigration, one of the three big companies mentioned by British diplomats at Bucharest."
While working for the Solomon, I learnt you could earn a lot of money by elaborating these requests. Nobody seemed to wonder whether they were real or not. It was just like a production line.
Sometimes you only had to change the name of existing documents", he says. Solomon and Partners confirmed they had elaborated Iftode's visa application, but denied having hired him. Solomon Farinto admitted that business plans were identical and specified this referred only to persons already in Great Britain when applying for visa.
UK Parliament gets involved
UK MP's asked PM Tony Blair to sack Minister for Internal Affairs David Blunkett from any position in immigration or exile rights, considering him to be "unfit" for the field.
Labourist MP's thought it was time the Minister for Internal Affairs had no longer dealt with issues having so much influence on the political life and fearing the immigration scandal could negatively influence the EU election campaign or the local election campaign in June.
More and more frequent idea is that immigration will be dealt with by " a special crisis commission", led by a former minister.
Labourist MP Derek Wyatt declared there were many people considering the Minister for Internal Affairs "unfit" for these matters."
The Ministry for Internal affairs is a very complex department and tasks must be divided, Wyatt specified. PM's suggested the creation of a special commission for immigration, led by persons like Jack Cunningham or Alan Milburn, ex member in the Blair Cabinet.
Geoana is still optimistic
Yesterday Minister for Foreign Affairs Mircea Geoana his optimism about the UK Cabinet making a decision favorable to the restart of the British Consulate in Bucharest and Sophia.
During a press conference at the headquarters of the ruling party, Geoana specified he was expecting a "practical, positive" after the extraordinary meeting of the British Cabinet, dedicated to immigration policies."
The Ministries for Foreign and Internal Affairs and Administration have expressed to our Embassy in London the explicit desire of the Romanian Government to collaborate for investigation included to discover circumstances leading to such fraud and corruption getting UK business visas", Mircea Geoana stated.
The Chief of Romania Diplomacy specified in case Romanians were involved, there would be no hesitation in "firmly" starting internal procedures to treat them as law Justice subjects in collaboration with UK Officials leading investigation.
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