There is an influx of nationalities issued with Fijian citizenship and passports over the years and some of them are from countries known as sponsors of terrorism, says Minister for Home Affairs Pio Tikoduadua.
While appearing on the The Fiji Times online platform, The Lens @177, Mr Tikoduadua said foreigners declared as prohibited immigrants who wished to stay had to follow an appeal process to avoid deportation.
“Otherwise, if they do not meet the requirement and immigration tells them to go out, they can reapply for permits to come back to Fiji irrespective of what grounds, be it commercial, business education and what not,” he said.
“There have been concerns about the number of passports issued in the past. As far as I’m concerned, a lot of those have met the requirements before the laws changed, so, an influx of certain nationalities.
“We haven’t gone about how they got the citizenship, obviously there’s a whole lot of other things to do. But those are things that we keep on the back of our minds to make sure that the people, when they got the citizenship, have complied with the laws of the country because they got citizenship.
“Other than that, there’s a lot of rumor mongering. So, if anyone believes or knows of someone with evidence that someone is an illegal (immigrant) and has obtained their passport other than by legal means, report them to the police or to immigration officials.”
Mr Tikoduadua said that while there was no reason to suggest there were security concerns about those not legally supposed to be here, there were citizens of certain countries which were renowned for terrorist activities.
They are from countries known as sponsors of terrorism and had been granted Fijian citizenship.
“From my records, and I have checked, almost all of them have acquired passports after being here for the proper time but whether other due considerations were taken before they were granted, that takes time to be investigated.
“As I said earlier, suggesting that someone has acquired a passport other than the lawful means, then please do come along. Otherwise, it’ll be a bit of a goose chase to find out whether you are compliant and all that.”
