Friday, December 08, 2006

Dual Citizenship - A Three Year Fixed Deposit?

"The Budget proposal to give dual citizenship to expatriate Sri Lankans, who have citizenship in other countries, on condition they deposit 50,000 US Dollars in a bank in Sri Lanka for a period of three years, has drawn the ire and protest of a majority of expatriate Sri Lankans, a number of travel trade persons and some Sri Lankans currently holidaying here.

Official sources said dual citizenship to Sri Lankans was given earlier on a charge of 200,000 rupees to the head of a family and an additional charge of 50,000 rupees for other members, including the spouse and children not over the age of 21." (via Lanka Newspapers)

$ 50,000?? If anyone has that amount of cash in hand, why would they want to part with it for three years to get a Sri Lankan passport/citizenship?! I thought charging SLR 200,000 from an individual who wanted to call himself/herself a Sri Lankan was bad enough but this is just ridiculous!

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