Richards, National Security on different pages of Diplomatic Passport

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - MERE days after six government ministers were fired from Cabinet, a new saga has developed in the Federation. This time it is over diplomatic passports and whether those of the former ministers were deactivated.
 
Former Deputy Prime Minister, Shawn Richards, who was terminated while overseas, alleged that he encountered a problem with his diplomatic passport and was forced to use his ordinary travel document.  
 
While speaking at the opening of the People’s Action Movement (PAM) Constituency Two office in Central Basseterre, Richards, who had attended a funeral in the United States of America, explained that he had encountered an immigration problem while seeking to return to St. Kitts and Nevis, as a check of his diplomatic passport revealed that it was no longer eligible for him to travel on.
 
“As a matter of fact, I am a sensible man. I have a US visa and I always say to people that I ain’t applying for no visa in no diplomatic passport, because nobody ain’t gon tek back their diplomatic passport. And when they tek it back they gon tek the visa with it. 
 
“Well, is a good thing ah do that. So the visa in the next passport, and the morning when I got to the airport, I gave them the diplomatic passport and I said: ‘Mister me nah think this still ah work, ah don’t think he a wok still! But swipe it and tell me what he seh.’ When the man done swipe it, he watch it, he watch the system. He said, ‘Let me go and call my supervisor.’ Ah say, ‘You seh you ain’t got to call your supervisor.’ I say, ‘What it is that happened?’ He said, ‘I have never seen this message before. This passport is no longer Federally eligible to travel on.’ Ah say, ‘As I here, use this passport. You okay?’ And I give him the regular passport because, maybe they thought I would have been stuck in the US,” Richards explained. 
 
Richards had made those comments on Friday (May 13) evening and the Ministry of National Security had responded, pointing out that the passports of the former Cabinet members were not canceled.  
 
In a statement yesterday (May 15), the Ministry of National Security informed that the former officials were never barred from travelling on their diplomatic passports.
 
“The Ministry of National Security hereby informs the general public that none of the Diplomatic Passports of the six former Ministers of Government have been deactivated by the Ministry, neither has any passport of a former Minister been barred by the Ministry from being used for international travel. The Ministry of National Security also informs that none of the six former Ministers of Government has returned his Diplomatic Passport to the Ministry’s Secretariat or to the Passport Office,” the statement read. 
 
Even though the six former Cabinet members had their services terminated, according to the Ministry of National Security, they have not turned in their diplomatic passports to the Ministry, raising questions over the policy when officials are no longer government officials.