Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum [Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji]

Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum today explained in detail in parliament the reasons behind changing Fiji’s citizenship laws.

While debating on Investment Bill 2022, Bill No 5, National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad stated that Fiji is losing some potential investors because of the conditions in the Immigration Act.

Prasad says the law requiring foreigners to stay in the country for 15 years to become eligible for Fijian citizenship is making Fiji lose potential investors.

“They don’t come in a vacuum. They come with families, they come with friends. They want to go and invest and live and probably become citizens and there are many good people over the years who have come, who have invested and become citizens.”

Biman Prasad [Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji]

In response, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says this was done as Fiji is trying to elevate the level of our citizenship.

Sayed-Khaiyum says previously, under the Immigration Act, a minister at his or her discretion could grant anybody citizenship.

“That happened under the SVT days when the leader of PAP was the Prime Minister. People who ran away from the law from other countries were granted citizenship within six months. What does that tell you or do to the value of our citizenship? It undermines our values. It undermines the value of citizenship. So any country looking at a Fijian passport will say, ok, anybody can get their citizenship.”

Sayed-Khaiyum says in countries like Singapore, people stay there for over 30 years and only get permanent residency.

He says as announced in the revised budget, permanent residency, based on investor levels will be granted.

“We had said the work permits will become a lot easier, to make it a lot more attractive, to get in the right investors. Permanent Residency means you can have all the rights as a normal Fijian citizen but you can’t do two things. You don’t get a Fijian passport, you have passport of your own country, you get a permanent residency and you cannot vote.”

Sayed-Khaiyum says if a person wants to invest and stay in Fiji, they need to stay here for 15 years, which will give us enough time to know whether they will be a good citizen or not.

He says this move received acknowledgment from the diplomatic circle as now the Fijian passport can become a lot more acceptable for visa free entry in some of the other countries.

“A lot of people used to come as fake investors into Fiji simply to get a Fijian passport to gain entry into other countries, namely Australia and NZ, that’s what they used to do, we were simply a stepping stone.”

Local Government Minister, Premila Kumar while contributing to the debate, shared her personal experience when she was working at Investment Fiji.

Local Government Minister, Premila Kumar [Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji]

Kumar says she quit her job within a year, when she found that people tried to get Fijian citizenship under the pretext of investing.

““These investors came in, within five years, their interest was to get citizenship. To facilitate the citizenship, rather than to facilitate investment there was lot of corruption in the organization and that was reported by the Auditor General’s report. I am talking about the criteria and the law that was set then. But this legislation is going to change that.”

Meanwhile, the Attorney General further stated that the Bainimarama government introduced multiple citizenship which led to many Fijians returning and investing in the country.