Many foreign nationals have failed to publicise their applications to become naturalised citizens as is required, according to APNU+AFC member Joe Harmon, who says it is important that the public knows how many naturalised Guyanese are in the country.
Harmon insisted that an APNU+AFC led government will ensure that not only are all the requirements met but that there is transparency and public scrutiny.
His comments come in wake of the disclosure that Chu Hongbo, the director of the Chinese owned Baishanlin Mining Development Company Limited, is a naturalised Guyanese. Hongbo’s naturalisation as a Guyanese citizen ensures that at least 50% of the shares of Baishanlin Mining Development Company Limited are held by Guyanese.
No details can be found on when his application was made or granted. However, Stabroek News was told that he was granted citizenship either late last year or early this year. Stabroek News made several online searches to ascertain whether Hongbo had published an application in the national newspapers but these were unsuccessful.
During a recent interview, Harmon told Stabroek News that it does concern the coalition that many of those who are naturalised Guyanese did not advertise their applications as is required. He said it is important for Guyanese to see a photograph of the person who is seeking citizenship.
The Ministry of Home Affairs website states that a person is eligible to apply for citizenship by naturalisation once he/she shows that they are ordinarily resident in Guyana and have been so resident throughout a period of seven years immediately preceding the application; that they are of good character; and that they intend to reside in Guyana.
On approval, the website said, the person will be granted a certificate of naturalisation and will have to take the oath of allegiance to Guyana.
Included in a list of requirements published on the Ministry of Home Affairs website is that the “applicant must advertise in the newspaper for two consecutive days that he or she is applying to the Ministry of Home Affairs for Naturalisation as a citizen of Guyana.”
Harmon stressed that the whole purpose of the advertisement is to ensure that if there is anything that is known about the character of the applicant, somebody can object to them being granted citizenship. “So it is something we have raised before and we will continue to insist that any such application for citizenship [includes] that the photograph and the identifying particulars of those persons must be published so that Guyanese persons can know exactly who they are talking about,” he added.
According to Harmon, in the newspapers one would have seen a name but “people cannot connect the name to an individual because it is just a blank publication there.” He added that in order for Guyanese to have a say, the photographs of the applicants ought to be published as well as the identifying particulars.
“Some of these persons might have come here, they might have been engaged in matters that are inimical to our own labour laws and therefore you cannot grant them this status when in fact a number of them might have been in violation of these laws,” he stressed.
He said too that before one qualifies to become a citizen, “you have to live sometime in Guyana and in very many cases you would have had to be conducting business. A number of these persons are conducting business… paying people monies that are less that they are supposed to pay…and are still allowed the privilege of citizenship of this country.”
Noting that in many countries citizenship is a much protected virtue, he said, “You don’t just get grant citizenship of a country like that. In very many countries you know that you have to go through a whole process and that in that process people have an opportunity to see what is going on.”
He said that Guyana has a very small population and “therefore it is in the interest for all of us… to know these person who are granted this status.”
Harmon made it clear that this situation of citizenship being granted to foreigners without public knowledge is going to change very soon. “We have about 11 days more when we would have a new government and we are going to put these kinds of things in place,” he said before adding that people must know to whom the privilege of citizenship is being granted.
Asked about the public not knowing how many naturalised persons are living here, Harmon acknowledged that it is of concern for the coalition, particularly since it may have some effect on the voters’ list. “It is indeed a concern… what has happened under this PPP/C administration, they have engendered distrust,” he said.
He said when there is a situation where there are “rogues and vagabonds” in very high positions in the system that issues government documents, such as birth certificates, without the necessary checks and balances, it creates distrust.
Asked if he was shocked to read that the Baishanlin director is a naturalised Guyanese, he said he was not shocked, given the “back door” way in which things have been done for the company.
Although he said once an applicant satisfies the legal requirements then certainly citizenship can be granted, he noted that Baishanlin has been granted all types of privileges that the Guyanese citizenship don’t know about. “Those concessions which they were granted by the Guyana Revenue Autho-rity, even before the company was properly granted licenses by the Guyana Forestry Commission… so that a lot of these things could have been done through the back door and the fact that all of these concessions were granted through the back door, then we are left to believe that the citizenship that was granted here might have been done through the back door as well,” he said.
Over the years there have been sporadic publication of applications for naturalised citizenship, with the majority being Chinese and Brazilian nationals.
However, sources say this is not a true reflection of the amount of persons who are naturalised each year.
Stabroek News has been told of cases were Chinese, Brazilian and African nationals have been granted citizenship without public vetting. They all would have been living and working her for a number of years and in some cases have married a Guyanese national or would have had children born here.
Stabroek News attempted to get information from the Home Ministry on the number of persons granted naturalisation status and from which countries they originate but was unsuccessful. Contact was made with the office of the Permanent Secretary Angela Johnson, from where this newspaper was referred to Carol Primo, who heads the Ministry’s Immigration Services Department.
Primo, when contacted, said she could not speak before referring this newspaper back to Johnson.
