Erasmus Shalihaxwe
The Minister of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security, Albert Kawana, has introduced the Regularisation of Status of Certain Residents of Namibia, their Descendants, and Foreign Spouses Bill.
On Monday, the minister introduced the bill in the National Assembly with the goal of regulating the status of holders of South West Africa Identification Documents (SWA IDs), their descendants, and their foreign spouses who are unable to obtain Namibian citizenship under the current legislative framework.
According to the minister, the bill provides for a process for these categories of people to acquire Namibian citizenship.
“The Bill provides that SWA ID holders will acquire citizenship by naturalisation; their descendants who were born outside South West Africa or Namibia will acquire Namibian citizenship by descent, while those who were born in South West Africa or Namibia will acquire Namibian citizenship by birth; their foreign spouses will acquire Namibian citizenship by marriage,” he said.
Kawana explained that Namibia still has people who are in possession of South-West Africa Identification Documents (SWA IDs), and they are unable to obtain citizenship due to various legal impediments, such as the submission of a police clearance certificate from the country of origin as required by Section 5(1)(d) of the Namibian Citizenship Act, 1990.
However, these people have lived in Namibia all along, have not returned to their supposed country of origin since they arrived in Namibia and would, therefore, not have records in their countries of origin.
“Despite these legal impediments, which cannot be addressed in the Namibian Citizenship Act of 1990, we are all cognisant of the fact that it has been 34 years since Namibia gained independence. The category of persons who are affected have been in Namibia since before independence and have no other home except Namibia. Some arrived in Namibia in 1978, making their residence in Namibia close to 50 years,” Kawana stated.
He added that based on the data from the National Population Registration System and official statistics published in the latest Namibia Inter-Censal Survey of 2016 by the Namibia Statistics Agency, it was indicated that by 2016, about 5 000 persons were still in possession of SWA IDs.
“We, unfortunately, do not have full census results to see how this number has changed. Even in the absence of the latest figures, one individual in possession of a SWA ID who is unable to obtain Namibian documents is still one too many,” he said.
