December 20, 2022 - Bissau, Guinea Bissau - Djulde Baldé, Conservador dos Registros Centrais (Keeper of Central Records) met with Decade of Return Coordinators Siphiwe Baleka and Daiana Taborda Gomes to give the latest update on the citizenship process and the status of the 23 applications he keeps in his office. The meeting was a follow-up to the meetings that were held on December 2, December 8 and on December 16th. Balanto Djassi (aka Yama Cisse on Facebook) and Abraham Santos Dias, representatives of the Roots to Guinea Bissau organization were invited to the meeting but did not attend.

Mr. Baldé explained the entire process and status of the 23 applications that he has received (see below). All of the security checks have been cleared by Interpol. On August 8, the Ministry of Justice asked the Prime Minister to waive all the fees and two days later, the Prime Minister agreed to reduce the fees by 50%.

Prime Minister
Eng. Nuno Gomes Nabiam
BISSAU
Bissau, 08/02/2022
No. Ref 2o3 /GMJDH/2022
Subject: Request for intervention.
With our distinguished greetings.
On 29/04/2022, we received the letter Rel. CPM/282/mc/2022, a request for the acquisition of Guinean nationality for African-Americans descending from Guinea Bissau, previously authorized by Your Excellency, was sent to my office. In this consonance, and completing the formalities for the purpose of attributing nationality, we request Your Excellency to be worthy, on an exceptional basis, to grant the waiver of payment of the relevant fees, since they involve relatively large sums (770,482.00 x 23 persons), whose payments should be made directly at the Single Office of the Public Treasury.
With no further business for the time being, please accept, Prime Minister, my full consideration.
Minister Teresa Alexandrina da Silva.
Handwriting: Authorized the exemption of 50% of the value.

To the Office of the Minister of Justice and Human Rights
Bissau, August 10, 2022
Subject matter: In/Ref. REf: 203/ GNHDG/2022 - Entry no. 3268.
GPM/714/mc/2022
The Office of His Excellency the Prime Minister sends his best regards to the Office of the Minister of Justice and Human Rights.
Following V. Correspondence on the above subject, we would like to inform you that the request was authorized by a superior, only 50% of the value, by Dispatch of His Excellency the Prime Minister, recorded in the attached letter.
High regard.
The Cabinet Director,
Jose Paulo Domingos Semena

Unfortunately, Ms. Balanto Djassi failed to inform us of this development back in August and we were thus unable to collect payments at that time. This is the reason for the delay in the process.

The Keeper of the Records now has all the files in his possession. The next step is to collect payment. Once payment is collected, the Decade of Return Coordinators will deposit the payments at the Treasury and issue a receipt to the Decade of Return Coordinators who will then take the receipts back to the Keeper of the Records who will add them to the file. The Keeper of the Records will then send the files to the General Director of the Ministry of Justice who will send it to the Minister of Justice who will take it to the Prime Minister. At this point, the issue of the naturalization applications will be entered into the agenda of the Council of Ministers. Because several ministers have various levels of interest - i.e. Minister of Tourism, Minister of Culture, Minister of Foreign Affaris, Minister of Justice - this part of the process could take a week or several months. No one knows. However, Mr. Baldé explained to us that the Ministry treats the naturalization applications as a single file. They prefer to move the file forward rather than each individual application, which will slow the process, since individual applications will not be a priority for the Council of Ministers, but a group file of African Americans will be a priority. Towards that end, he highly recommended, as he did in our previous meeting, that those who are ready should make their payment to the Decade of Return account in Guinea Bissau. Then, right after the holidays, we will deposit the money into the State Treasury and return the receipts to him. Those who would like to do this and ensure their file is included in the first group should email repatbissau@gmail.com for the payment information. We have already collected payment from people on the list.

Finally, we showed Mr. Baldé analytics from our website, including the data that showed that since our meeting on December 8, as many as 245 people came to us to get information about citizenship in Guinea Bissau and that we were already promoting tours for 2023 with the view to helping the government host its first Citizenship Ceremony in May.

https://www.repatbissau.com/en/decadeofreturngb and https://www.decadeofreturngb.com/

We explained to the Keeper of Records the model that is being used in Sierra Leone and suggested that we could follow the same model, whereby his office would recognize various groups authorized to process applications and the government hosts Citizenship Ceremonies twice a year. However, processing applications involves having the capacity to translate the documents which not all groups may possess. Mr. Baldé said that it could work that way but that they prefer that a united front represent any groups that may wish to become part of the process. This is exactly the reason why from the very beginning, The Minister of Culture issued a document inviting everyone to coordinate through the Decade of Return. For the benefit of all the descendants of people taken from Guinea Bissau who wish to obtain citizenship, as well as for the benefit of the government of the Republic of Guinea Bissau, it is best that we demonstrate the original spirit that initiated the process and already demonstrated the capacity to process the applications and collect payment. Unity for Guinea Bissau!

Guinea Bissau Citizenship Update: Important Meeting With Conservador dos Registros Centrais (Keeper of Central Records)

FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO INITIATE A NATURALIZATION APPLICATION,

COMPLETE THE FORM HERE