CHILDREN born in Fiji are granted citizenship by operation of law and there is no authorisation required of the Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration Pio Tikoduadua.

This is the response from Grace Road Group to the ministry’s statement on the issuance of “unauthorised” Fiji passports to the child of two Grace Road Church members by the Immigration Department.

On Thursday, Mr Tikoduadua released a statement saying that an investigation has been launched by the ministry to find out how the child was given a Fiji passport which allowed the father to leave the country with the child and her brother.

According to information provided to The Fiji Times by the children’s mother, she came from Korea with her husband and an older child about eight years ago.

The four-year-old was birthed at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.

She said the child “is previously unregistered in Fiji for her entire four years of existence”.

The mother had fled from Grace Road’s True Mart in Navua after what she claimed was eight years of “slavery” with the organisation.

“The fact is that citizens of Fiji received passports, which is now called ‘unauthorised’. Section 6 of the Citizenship of Fiji Act 2009 grants citizenship to children born in Fiji,” GRG said.

“The father, a member of Grace Road Group had done nothing more than apply for a passport for his younger child, who is Fiji citizen and born in Fiji, and obtained a grant of the same.

“The older child holds Korean passport.”

GRG claimed that the timing of the press statement from the ministry was “no doubt designed to deviate attention and to obscure the factual matrix of the current case of our president” which is before the High Court.

Questions have been sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration.