Premier Andrew Fahie has hinted at his government raising the $10,000 fine associated with persons who falsify COVID-19 information when entering the territory.
The premier’s comments came on Friday September 3 during a press conference, just days after it was revealed that fake vaccination documents coupled with falsified information on COVID-19 tests were discovered at local ports of entry.
Premier Fahie who is the Minister of Tourism was responding to questions posed on the subject from local media.
He said, “We will be looking to see how to raise that $10,000 up. I can tell persons that from now because for anybody to get involved in that behaviour knowingly, intentionally doing it, can cost us our economy. So we will be reviewing that and some other measures very soon because that may have to increase.”
These practices could severely impact the BVI’s economy
The tourism minister heavily condemned the actions of persons involved these practices as he highlighted the negative impact it can have on the entire territory.
“From my understanding it happened in both times from persons loading false information, you know you’d like to say that you would hope those things don’t happen but in anything in life there’s always persons who try to beat the system,” he stated.
He added, “The only problem with this is that when you try to beat the system, you destroy the system and everyone in it and around it, because this is COVID-19 and if you lie about being negative and then you’re not, you lie about being vaccinated and you’re not, you put a lot of persons lives in danger.”
Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Ronald Georges was the first persons to announce the discovery of falsified information relating to COVID-19 documents.
He made that disclosure during an emergency Transportation-for-Hire industry meeting on Tuesday August 31.
He said that health officials detected a number of instances where dates and numbers on documents presented by inbound travelers were not making sense.
Dr. Georges also said that there were BVI vaccination cards that were presented that had been falsified as well.