An interesting debate took place in Parliament yesterday as the Opposition questioned when the Prime Minister would release the final report of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Citizenship.

“My question is to the Prime Minister and possibly the Minister of Justice regarding the COI. Many people are asking, since the payment for the COI has been approved, when will it be released?” an Opposition MP asked.

In response, the Prime Minister claimed that the MP for Tanna Constituency, Andrew Wilbur Napuat, was using a fake Facebook ID on social media to post misleading information, suggesting he already had a copy of the COI report.

“The MP for Tanna is using a fake ID, maybe under the Opposition admin page, raising a lot of issues about the COI. The information being shared is misleading and implies that he has the report, even though the committee hasn’t tabled it yet,” the Prime Minister said.

The Prime Minister stated that he was not defending the COI report but believed it should be made public. However, he also said the report was biased because it failed to cover the beginning of the citizenship document issuance process.

“I am not here to defend it. The COI must go public. Unfortunately, it is biased ,why did it only target 2023–2024? Why didn’t it start from 2019 until now? That’s where the issue began,” the Prime Minister said.

However, Hon. Andrew Wilbur Napuat rejected the Prime Minister’s claim that he had a copy of the report and pressed for a direct answer to his question.

“My question is simple: when are we going to release the COI report? The Prime Minister said I have a copy, but he has no evidence of that,” Napuat said.

In response, the Prime Minister explained that the Attorney General’s Office had advised the government not to release the report because it did not comply with its terms of reference.

“The Attorney General’s Office has advised that we cannot release the report because it does not meet the requirements stated in its terms of reference,” the Prime Minister said.