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plan on leaving eventually, except for those qualified, like most of the Africans by birth and parentage. Many opted for the UK "D" passports issued by the newly opened British High Commissions, that in Nairobi was getting 1000 applications a day just after Independence Day. However there may have been a tendency for those with good government posts to take the local option. Asians were not allowed to hold farming land and were more mobile than most. Many families hedged bets and took a variety of nationalities, local, UK Indian etc. All children born in the new states had citizenship rights but usually with the proviso that they renounced any other citizenship at 21, (except for children of foreign diplomats). This affected statistics of local Asians by making it appear that they were acquiring citizenship by choice when in fact they were merely having lots of children.
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Thus because the distinction in local eyes between BPP's and UKC's vanished at independence and most became nationals of the new states there was no precedent for Mr Stone's case in the African experience. There was initially no distinction either in the payment of pensions until Tanzania ceased to pay OSAS pensioners in June 1968 and others followed suit. Most countries attempted to continue to pay local staff. It was just that this was in a currency depreciating even faster than the £ Sterling. This was worse for local pensioners who were living in the UK or elsewhere abroad than for those who had stayed put. However the Asians who came to Britain or Canada have generally prospered or have had relatives who have done so and have looked after them. Their old local pensions would not have been worth much in comparison to their new family incomes. The big losers were Asian businessmen who lost African assets but even they seem to have recovered by their enterprise and by communal charity. But these African examples, stripped of the confusing BPP distinction, arose after independence, not beforehand.
CODE 18-77
C. T. Hart.
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