THE NUMBER of people asking for a document that is mainly used for permanent residency applications overseas has more than doubled in the past 10 years.
Some 12,707 applied for Certificates of No Criminal Conviction last year, compared to just 4,996 in 1998.
The document, which is issued by the police, certifies that a person does not have any criminal convictions in Singapore within a certain period of time.
Mr Siew Kum Hong: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs for each of the past ten years, how many Certificates of No Conviction had been applied for and issued.
Mr Wong Kan Seng:
The Certificate of No Criminal Conviction (CNCC) is issued by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Singapore Police Force. The document certifies that the applicant does not have any criminal convictions in Singapore within a stipulated period of time.
CNCCs are issued to Singapore Citizens, Permanent Residents and foreigners above the age of 16 and who have resided in Singapore for more than 6 months.
They are requested for a variety of reasons, including applying for permanent residency rights in other countries (68% of applications), further studies and employment overseas (21% of applications) and child adoption, pre-marriage procedures and other reasons (12% of applications).
The table below provides the number of CNCCs applied for and issued for the past 10 years:
Year
Total No. of CNCC Applications (A)
Total No. of CNCC Issued (B)
1998
4996
5037
1999
6477
6382
2000
9000
8756
2001
9629
9327
2002
10908
10670
2003
10138
9899
2004
12250
11940
2005
11337
11289
2006
10548
10576
2007
12707
12249
NB: For some years, the number of CNCC applications is smaller than the number of CNCCs issued. This is due to the processing time of 2 weeks, resulting in some Dec CNCC applications processed only in Jan the following year.
