Citing fears of an influx of foreigners, political party, ANUG has called on government to cease all grants of citizenship to such aliens unless stringent and clear criteria for citizenship are made available for public examination and discussion.
In a letter published in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek, A New and United Guyana (ANUG) Chairman Timothy Jonas pointed to media reports that nearly 1,000 individuals have been granted citizenship in Guyana since 2015. Citing a newspaper report, Jonas also said that “approximately 100 applications for citizenship” are made to the ministry daily.
At a news conference last week, according to a report in the Guyana Chronicle, Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix said that for the period from 2015 to July this year, 923 immigrants were granted citizenship. He also said, according to a report in the Guyana Times, over 100 applications per day are made to process visas for persons coming to work in oil and gas offshore.
Visa applications are not applications for citizenship.
Jonas had argued that it is Guyanese who must reap the “extraordinary” benefits that can be made possible from the oil and gas sector.
“What is the point of any discussion on local content or preferential tax treatment or access to health and education for Guyanese, if foreigners can simply apply to the ministry, sign a piece of paper, and become Guyanese,” Jonas asked, even as he questioned, “What is the government’s policy on the granting of citizenship to foreigners?”
According to the ANUG Chairman, it is “alarming” that “our patrimony, the benefit which we rightfully expect to enjoy from our newfound wealth, is in danger of being dissipated to foreigners by the grant of citizenship to hundreds and possibly thousands of foreigners who apply to the ministry and sign a piece of paper. They will immediately be entitled to share in our healthcare, our education, our tax benefits and our pensions.”
Jonas said that ANUG is calling on the government to cease all grants of citizenship to foreigners unless and until stringent and clear criteria for citizenship are made available for public examination and discussion.
Who is entitled to Guyanese citizenship and how citizenship can be obtained is enshrined in Guyana’s Constitution and subsidiary legislation. Notwithstanding, a recommendation that legislation be reviewed and revised as necessary has previously been made. A forensic audit into the Passport Office, commissioned by the APNU+AFC government in 2016, had recommended, for example, that foreign applicants for citizenship should be required to write and to pass an examination as is mandatory in other countries.
Currently, Guyana’s laws provide that Guyanese citizenship can be obtained through four means: marriage to a Guyanese national; being the minor child born abroad to a Guyanese; being an adult foreign national of Guyanese parentage; and naturalisation. The latter requires residence in Guyana for five years if a citizen of a Commonwealth or a CARICOM country, or seven years if a citizen of any other country. Over the years, applications for Guyanese citizenship have fluctuated and while on an annual basis, in the past four years it has risen, on a year-by-year basis, it is not a steep rise compared to previous peak years. The 2016 forensic audit had found that from 1st May 2011 to 30th June 2014, citizenship was granted to 271 applicants from 41 countries. Cubans have consistently topped the list of foreigners granted Guyanese citizenship. For that period, the year the highest number of persons were granted citizenship was in 2012 when 139 applications were approved. It must be noted that figures for the entirety of 2011 and 2014 were not provided in the audit report.
Felix, at his press conference last week, had provided figures for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and the first half of this year. For those years, 141, 192, 230, 252, and 108 persons were granted citizenship.
The opposition PPP has recently also expressed concern about “droves” of Haitians arriving in Guyana and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has claimed without evidence that Haitians and other foreigners are being provided with fake documents to facilitate their registration. However, the records showed that very few Haitians have been granted citizenship.
In terms of work permits, the largest number had previously been granted to Brazilians.
