Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam revealed that more permanent residents (PRs) were granted Singapore citizenship over the last three years although the proportion of PRs getting citizenship was commensurate with the increase in total citizenships granted in each year.
Mr Shanmugam, who also serves as Law Minister, was responding to a parliamentary question filed by Workers’ Party (WP) MP for Aljunied GRC, Leon Perera, on Thursday (15 Oct). Mr Perera had asked the Minister to provide details on how many permanent residents were granted citizenship status each year in the last three years.
Figures Mr Shanmugam provided showed that 18,269, 18,840, and 19,049 permanent residents were granted Singapore citizenship in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.
With the total number of citizenships granted in those three years being 22,076, 22,550 and 22,714 respectively, the proportion of PRs granted citizenship remained steady at about 83 per cent for 2017, 2018 and 2019 even though the number of individuals in this category rose.
Mr Shanmugam further said that those who were granted citizenship without first becoming PRs in each of those three years were non-resident minors who were either children of Singaporeans or children of PRs who were granted Singapore citizenship as a family unit.