Manama: A Kuwaiti lawmaker has lambasted a plan by the government to offer stateless people — known as bidoon — the citizenship of the African nation of Comoros to help settle an old social, economic and political issue.

Under the plan, announced by Mazen Al Jarrah, the interior ministry assistant undersecretary for nationality, passports and residency on Sunday, the bidoon will soon be given application forms that they will fill in to obtain the economic citizenship of the Comoros islands.

The nationality and passport of the African nation would ease grave issues related to residency of the stateless people, including the rights to reside in Kuwait under Article 22 (self-sponsorship), to free education and health care, and to employment.

Family heads would receive a passport and nationality, “Economic Documents” while the children would be given original Comorian nationalities and passports, he added.

Al Jarrah said Kuwait would fulfil the conditions set by the government of the Comoros that include Kuwait building schools, institutes and houses on the islands and opening a branch of the Zakat House.

The process for Kuwaiti investments will start in the African country soon after it opens an embassy in Kuwait City, expected within months.

Under the agreement between the two countries, Kuwait would not deport any naturalised Comorian without a court order. The deported would have the rights to housing, health care and education provided by the Kuwaiti government, Al Jarrah said.

However, the plan was condemned by MP Faisal Al Duwaisan as a “very dangerous development that has not been studied carefully and could lead to the fall of the government.”

“There is not the slightest doubt that there are fallacies about the claim that most of the Bidoons had another nationality,” he said, quoted by the local media on Monday. “If such claims were true, they would be deported to their countries of origin.”

The lawmaker said that issue should be taken up seriously by the parliament.

“We will proceed gradually and we will ask the prime minister and the interior minister to clarify the situation. We will later discuss the case with other lawmakers and we will set up an investigation committee and we might quiz,” he said.

No official figures about the number of the Bidoon in Kuwait exist, but estimates put them at 110,000.

However, Kuwaiti authorities insist that only 34,000 illegal residents — as they are called — qualify for consideration for citizenship, while the others are first generation immigrants who moved to Kuwait following the discovery of oil and their descendants.

Kuwait and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country Saudi Arabia have been pushing for solutions to the presence of hundreds of thousands of stateless residents on their territories.

In August, Saudi Arabia issued special cards to stateless people living in the country to help them through official administrative work.

The cards, issued by the General Directorate of Passports, are similar to the residency permits given in Saudi Arabia to expatriates, but have features that allow their holders to be treated like Saudis nationals.

“The cards ease all procedures and give their holders special benefits as if they were Saudi nationals,” Salman Al Yahya, the director general, said at the launch of new services by the directorate.