08 Dec 2019

Parliament has adopted a motion requesting the Ministry of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs to amend the Citizenship Act to make it a default position that one retains the Botswana citizen unless they specifically renounce it.

Tabling the motion, Maun East legislator, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile said allowing for a default position for citizens to retain Botswana citizenship, unless they renounced it, rendered them the opportunity to enjoy certain benefits and possibly deal with issues such as unemployment.

He argued that whether one chose to renounce Botswana citizenship or not should be left to individuals. He noted that the recently introduced Botswana Blue Card allowed persons who had renounced Botswana citizenship to retain the right to unlimited stay in Botswana.

While dual citizenship gives certain advantages such as easy residency in multiple countries and access to opportunities and government programmes, Mr Kekgonegile cautioned that there were extra-legal considerations that could make life more complicated for people who had dual citizenship.

He said a dual citizen may have tax obligations in more than one countries or may need to fulfil residency requirements between two homelands.

He cautioned that the dual citizenship was a complex legal concept that could be easily misunderstood, though in essence meaning that individuals were recognised as citizens by two sovereign states.

He said Botswana, like many other countries, had generally looked at its citizens maintaining dual citizenship with disfavour since the current law requires one to choose between parents, culture and identity.

He said the possibility for one to find renouncement of citizenship at the age of 21 was quite unfair and upsetting.

He said the majority of countries across the world maintained the first type of rule where the voluntary citizenship of another country implied the automatic loss of the citizenship of origin, something he said represented the traditional negative approach towards dual citizenship.

When responding to the motion, Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs, Ms Annah Mokgethi explained that the Citizenship Act (Cap 01;01) sets out processes and procedures on how an individual may acquire or lose Botswana’s citizenship. She said Section 15 of the Act states that any person who is a citizen of Botswana and also a citizen of another country shall, upon the attainment of the age of 21 years, cease to be a citizen of Botswana unless such a person has, immediately before the attainment of the age of 21 years, renounced the citizenship of that other country.

“The Citizenship Act confers dual citizenship to minor of a citizen and a foreign parent until they reach the majority age of 21 and once a person has attained the age of 21 it is then the duty of the person to approach the ministry and formally renounce citizenship of Botswana or the citizenship of whichever country the minor’s parent holds,” she said.

She said her ministry continued to undertake vigorous awareness campaigns that included public education, kgotla meetings and the media platforms in an effort to educate the public on renouncing on time.

Thus, she said her ministry had made the decision to start the process of amending the Citizenship Act, which included the amendment of Section 15 to make it the default position that one retained Botswana citizenship unless they specifically renounced Botswana citizenship.  She said her ministry was, therefore, finalising the Cabinet Memorandum for presentation to Cabinet as part of the review process.

Okavango MP, Mr Kenny Kapinga supported the motion, saying there were many cases of people in his constituency who were deprived of their citizenship since they were born in neighbouring countries to Batswana citizen. He said such children should be allowed to lawfully retain their parents’ nationality at point of entry.

 He said citizenship was a fundamental right as stated in the United National Declaration for Human Rights that everyone had the right to nationality and no one should be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality or denied the right to change his nationality.

Francistown East MP, Mr Butie Billy also supported the motion, highlighting that the issue cut across all the nation, particularly those who originate from along the border villages. MP for Nkange Mr Never Tshabang was of the view that the motion should be adopted as children born in Botswana by Batswana parents who have inherited citizenship by birth, should, when they reach 21, automatically maintain the status core of being Botswana citizens. ends