R.B:
Let me first talk about the so-called Passport and Immigration Officers (PIO), some of these ‘severe looking’ civil servants and police officers on secondment, who work under the aegis of the PMO. While one PIO sits at the counter (departure and arrival alike) to check the passport, air ticket, etc., one or two more of his colleagues will often stand behind him to ‘double-check’, look back and forth at the passenger from head to toe, as if to try to destabilize the latter with some ‘eagle-eye’ scanning strategy.
Sometimes the ‘standing-behind’ PIO will even take the passport and turn its pages, as if to ask maybe how it is that this guy/lady is travelling again or guess if there is some ‘objection to departure’! Or if the Mauritian passenger has returned to Plaisance, the ‘double/triple-check’ at the arrival counter looks like an assessment of whether the passenger in question is really a Mauritian or a fugitive from some country with no Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) contribution to our shores! No wonder the Audit report talks about public wastage every year. Maybe the next PRB report can add some more tangible items in their scheme of duties!
Secondly, in 2011, I still cannot comprehend how some of our Customs Officers (CO), working under the MRA carry their duties at the airport. Unless they have reasonable ground to suspect that a passenger is hiding some valuable and/or illegal stuff in his luggage and does not wish to declare them/it, there is absolutely no necessity to put up 6-7 CO at the ‘Nothing to Declare’ (Green) corridor.
Very often, some CO do as if they are entitled to ask all kinds of personal questions to the already tired Mauritian passenger – whose trip may have lasted more than 10 hours – , verify each page of his/her passport, request him/her to go to the Red Zone to open the luggage and bag(s), search them for 10 minutes or so, most of the time with no concrete ‘result’.
At all the other airports I have been to since my first trip abroad 25 years ago, I have never seen so many PIO / CO standing still in group, arms crossed and scanning the passengers with their sole eyes and questions! Isn’t it time to have CCTV cameras and real customs scanning machines do that job at both departure and arrival sections?
Their strange looks destabilize passengers and we are all made to feel like suspects.
ReplyDeleteExtremely good remarks sir. I agree with you a million percent and I have been travelling to more than 65 countries and ONLY MAURITIUS AIRPORT has these problems and they really make you feel so bad the way they stand behind the PIO as if you are a mafia connected.
ReplyDeletePeople should keep voicing out and in fact in my last trip while I was walking on the green light one officer stopped me and that day I was really fed up as it was not the first time they did that , the situation was more deplorable as he opened my passport , check my name then asked me to go inside for a check - I totally refused and told the guy that I will stop all passengers one by one to follow me if he dares send me to the red area and finally the chief CO came and he let me go. there are too much to talk anyway
I also agree 200% with what R.B is saying. I haven't seen much change in the way the airport officers and customs behave. Let us hope that they stop acting like that a.s.a.p. and treat Mauritians with the respect we deserve.
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