Dear Editor,
There is no more urgent issue for Guyanese to decide on than a change to our citizenship laws; currently, this right is afforded to anyone who can demonstrate a single Guyanese grandparent, marriage to a Guyanese citizen, and those who have worked/lived here for a minimum of seven years. Given Guyana’s small population and her large oil reserves, many benefits can accrue to her citizens if the numbers do not become bloated by newfound relatives and migrants. Qatar provides a good example of successful citizenship limitation laws that bear examination.
Qatar has a population of 2.6M of which 313,000 are Qatari citizens and 2.3M expatriate workers; benefits of citizenship include (but are not limited to) tax-free incomes, high-paying government jobs, free health care, free higher education, financial support for newlyweds, housing support, generous subsidies that cover utility bills and plush retirement benefits. These benefits would appeal to all Guyanese, except the few who would rather dwell in unlit caves than enjoy wealth earned by oil.
Our politicians (administration, opposition, and aspirants) must all be made to understand that our current laws will dilute our wealth to a point where the standard of living will stagnate at a much lower level than we deserve. Guyana has to be built, migrant workers can bring their skills and sweat and be paid for those contributions, what cannot be allowed is an easy path to a share of our patrimony. There is also the issue of state security and stability, our immigration department is swamped with requests for work visas, and passports via the family, marriage, and long-stay residence routes, the department is operated by the Guyana Police Force in a third-world office with third-world procedures.
The Immigration Department needs updated legislation to allow it to hire civilian employees; and greatly increased funding to allow for a background investigation of work permit applicants, one can look at the example of the State House shooter, a Nigerian, whose visa sponsor was seen leading a pro-Hamas protest in Georgetown and quickly grasp the implications of unchecked migration. The case of Guyanese who produced children in Saudi Arabia a generation ago is also instructive; those children were given Guyanese passports as Saudi citizenship is not available to them despite being born in that country; it is also interesting to note that persons born in the United Kingdom to non-UK citizens are not entitled to UK citizenship. Guyana would not be an outlier among nations if/when we change our laws to curb the dilution of our wealth.
Editor, as our oil reserves grow, so will our population, migrant labour will increase as our need grows, and, we can expect ‘ramped’ up numbers of ‘lottery relatives’ claiming their Guyanese citizenship. It is well past the time to ‘ring fence’ Guyanese citizenship, indeed, it is the only way Guyanese will ever enjoy Qatari-like benefits.
Sincerely,
Robin Singh
