Forty-three Citizenship Applications were deliberated on by the Citizenship Advisory Committee (CAC) in late April 2022, Minister for Immigration and Border Security, Bryan Kramer said.
“The recommencing of the CAC hearings is encouraging after the last one was held in September 2019. The Committee was unable to meet since then due to legislative and political factors affecting the status of the CAC members. This issue has been resolved and the permanent members of the Committee were sworn in by the Head of State at the Government House on 7th and 21st April 2022,” he said.
The role of the CAC is to deliberate on citizenship matters through files compiled by the PNG Immigration and Citizenship Authority (PNGICA), and provide recommendations to the Minister responsible to make decisions in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee and the Ministerial powers in deciding on citizenship matters.
“The total number of applications received up to 6th May 2022 by ICA is two hundred and eight-ysix. One hundred and forty-nine of these applications have been assessed and met all mandatory requirements and received positive clearance from relevant security and regulatory agencies,” Minister Kramer said.
“Of the forty-three applications deliberated by the CAC on 29th and 30th April 2022, five applicants applied for citizenship through the naturalization pathway while thirty-eight applied for dual citizenship under other pathways. There are eight different citizenship pathways.”
“Most of those applicants have lived in PNG for more than eight years and some were born in Papua New Guinea.”