KOTA KINABALU: Warisan party battle cry of ‘Sabah for Sabahans’ is a meaningless rhetoric.
Its president, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal and his illegal Sabah government appears to care more for foreign illegals rather than genuine Sabahans” said Datuk Dr. Jeffrey Kitingan in response to his call for issuance of passes for illegal foreign workers in the plantation sector while considering allowing them to bring in their families too.
Dr. Jeffrey, the MP for Keningau and Tambunan Assemblyman, said Warisan and its leaders appear to have gotten its priorities all wrong and its coalition partners, PKR, DAP and Upko are equally to blame for sidelining local Sabahans and prioritizing foreigners and illegals at that.
Any truly patriotic Sabah government and its leaders should first consider the welfare and concerns of genuine Sabahans with priority as well as to enforce the law on illegals, not the other way around.
Prior to PRU-14, Dap leaders particularly their strongman, Kit Siang, whenever in Sabah would raise the issue of the RCI on illegal immigrants in Sabah and non-action taken by the BN governments.
However, lately after PRU-14 and becoming part of the federal government, both PKR and DAP leaders have failed to raise a single sound on illegals in Sabah. It only goes to show their true colours and that they do not genuinely care for Sabahans and were merely fishing for Sabahans to vote for them. After getting the votes, they now behave quite the opposite and leaving genuine Sabahans in the lurch.
A responsible Sabah government will first consider the needs of industries before making any policy decisions on foreign workers and not the other way around. This was rightly pointed out by the Sabah Employers Association which advised that an in-depth study be conducted and all stakeholders be consulted first.
Only an irresponsible government will think of legalizing the illegal foreigners first without even consulting the captains of industry on their needs and without seeking out the other stakeholders.
Shafie should learn to respect the Rule of Law and know the existing laws. He needs to clearly define what he means by “legalizing” the foreign workers.
Under the existing laws, illegals are punishable and should be sent home unless their governments through their Embassies work out an amnesty or similar program with the Malaysian government.
It is clear that the illegal Sabah government is helping illegals and is having a different idea and different objective when announcing its intention to legalize illegals when they should be enforcing the law.
Ordinary Sabahans are already objecting to the move to legalize illegals. They cannot be blamed for thinking that in time to come, the illegals after legalization through passes are made to become citizens.
In the past, illegal foreigners were given passes like IMM13 and eventually all of them were issued blue ICs and MyKads and become Malaysian citizens in Sabah overnight.
Even illegals without passes were issued ICs and MyKads under Project IC during the tenure of PM Mahathir. Some of them given ICs were “re-born” in Sabah after being born in their home countries, not just neighbouring Philippines and Indonesia but as far away as Pakistan and India.
In social media, we can read and see incidences of illegals being all-powerful based on Warisan becoming the government, albeit illegally, and supporting the illegal takeover of government and asking them to honour their promise to issue ICs to them.
“It has always my fear that Sabah will be overrun by illegals someday. It has now become the fear of most local Sabahans” said Jeffrey.
If the illegals become legalized and no steps are taken to resolve the illegals problem, the future looks bleak for genuine Sabahans in their own homeland.-pr/BNN
