The Citizenship Advisory Committee (CAC) will meet in early February to deliberate on citizenship applications for both dual and naturalised citizenship applicants.
This will include West Papuans, said Chief Migration Officer Solomon Kantha.
Kantha announced this when meeting the newly-appointed Citizenship Advisory
Committee Chairman, Francis Maneke, Member for Talasea Open, and Deputy
Chair Koi Trape, Member for Mul-Baiyer, at the Immigration and Citizenship Authority (ICA) Office in Port Moresby recently.
The other members of the CAC are the Secretary for Justice and Attorney General and Chief Migration Officer.
Kantha congratulated both Members of Parliament for their appointment to the Citizenship Advisory Committee during the briefing with the two MPs on their roles and responsibilities in the Committee, and said given the increasing number of citizenship and dual citizenship applications, the CAC Secretariat will schedule quarterly hearings for them.
A total of 120 citizenship applications have been received by ICA so far. Of that total, 14 Papua New Guineans and 94 foreign residents applied for dual citizenship. 12 other applicants applied for citizenship by naturalisation only.
Kantha said the applications are finalised for the CAC hearing planned for the month of February. This will be the first time the CAC will meet on dual citizenship applications.
The CAC was established under the Constitution and Citizenship Act with the responsibility of assessing and screening citizenship applications to recommend to the Minister responsible for the granting of PNG citizenship to foreign applicants.