papua new guinea

by Nicholas Hornsby
(Cambs, UK)

I recently accepted a contract with a UK company Millbrook Painting Services Limited (MPS) as a Heavy Vehicle Driver (ie Tank transporters) to service a contract with ITT at location APS5 - Kuwait for the US Military in Kuwait, Combat Support Service Contract - Kuwait (CSSC-K). The job was conditional upon the ability to acquire and maintain a Common Access Card (CAC). I believe the process of gaining a CAC for Camp Arifjan (the process is referred to as 'badging') requires being in Kuwait for the appropriate visa to have been granted upon entry to Kuwait.

I travelled to Kuwait and awaited my badging. Unfortunately I was informed by the MPS manager in Kuwait that I was not accepted for a CAC. The reasoning given that my place and date of birth (Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG)- 1979) were uncompatible with securing clearance and that had I been born post-1981/2 in PNG that would have been acceptable. I am the child of two UK born British Citizens and my birth was registered with the British Embassy in PNG within a similar timeframe that would occur in the UK. My father was working on secondment from the GPO (General Post Office - a state body), through the Crown Agents (also a state body), as a telephone engineer in PNG. I left PNG when 11 months old, never having returned. I held and used my own passport (and was not piggybacked onto my mothers passport as was common) aged 3 months to travel to the UK and/or Australia. I have never been anything but a fully entitled British Citizen. I find it hard to accept that I am a greater risk to security than the large number of foreign nationals, many of sub-continental origin, who work at Camp Arifjan.

Through casual internet research, following my return from an unsucessful time in Kuwait, I have been unable to find official DoD information regarding security clearance nor any connection between PNG and the US around the time of 1980-1984. The only thing I have found is plenty of law firms advertising assistance with acquiring and maintaining security clearance. I have subsequently browsed the MoD sites and found plenty of useful information. Assuming (always dangerous) that the systems of obtaining clearance are broadly similar I would guess that an individual cannot gain access without sponsorship and that, in my case, would be either MPS, ITT or the DoD department who administrate the CSSC-K contract.

To that end I am requesting any information available, both official and anecdotal, as to the issues surrounding my failure to gain approval. I am unfamiliar with the methods, means and systems of contractor security clearance nor even what steps, if any, are available to me next so any help would be greatly received.