KOTA KINABALU: Parti Warisan Sabah deputy president Darell Leiking’s offer to quit over the alleged issuance of MyKads to illegal immigrants is a meaningless threat.
Datuk Jahid Jahim, PBS Information Chief, in a statement said Leikng he using “reverse psychology” by threatening to resign.
He said the method was used by many in the desperate hope that such allegations may be difficult to prove when the parties involved were complicit in the wrongdoing.
Sabahans are not fools and blind to what has been going on where illegal immigrants were concerned, Jahid said adding that Leiking should cross-check with party colleagues and government departments before “bravely” offering to resign over the matter.
According to him, Leiking’s comrades and the state government had made so many contradictory statements on Sabah being swamped by hordes of illegals immigrants and virtually “rubbished” Darell’s statement, on Oct 21 in the media, wherein he denied the Warisan-led Sabah state governmemt was issuing MyKads to illegal immigrants.
“The so-called census of IMM13 holders and their children, carried out by the Immigration Department from Oct 1 to Oct 12, was proof enough of government interference in the Department,” Jahid said.
“There was no reason for the state government to get involved in the work of the National Registration Department (NRD) and the Immigration Dept.”
“Warisan chairman and Law Minister Liew Vui Keong even conceded in a statement on Sept 12 this year that registration forms for people to get identification cards could be done at the Batu Sapi Rakyat Mobile Service Centre,” he said.
“There was no reason for Liew to offer such “touting” services if the people concerned were eligible for MyKads.”
Deputy Home Minister Azis Jamman, for another, was heard bragging in a viral video about what he could do for the fire victims at a squatter settlement, Jahid said.
“This was after one of the many fires at squatter settlements in Sabah in the wake of the sudden May 12 change of the state administration. Until today, there has been no official explanation on the spate of fires at squatter settlements.”
Jahid also contended about mobile National Registration Department(NRD) vans suddenly appearing at these squatter settlements gutted by fire.
He said they would not do so unless instructed by someone with high ranking authority.
“There are genuine Sabahans especiallly in the rural areas who till today do not have birth certificates and hence cannot apply for Mykads.”
Overnight, the NRD has suddenly become super efficient by turning up at these burnt down squatter settlements. It is an open secret that illegal immigrants occupy these squatter settlements, he said.
The authorities concerned should probe whether these fires at the squatter settlements were started by arsonists working on the much touted Projek IC 2.0 for illegal immigrants, he added.
“Indeed, it was even admitted by NRD in a media statement on Oct 1 that those turning up at mobile NRD vans, during visits by Warisan president Shafie Apdal, were not eligible for Malaysian citizenship.”
The question that people should ask is what moved these people to even turn up at these events. The disingenuous NRD statement claimed that although not Malaysians, these people were not foreigners or illegal immigrants.
According to NRD, these people hold IMM13 refugee passes, settlement certificates or “burung burung”, and census certificates. Besides IMM13, according to state Immigration Director Musa Sulaiman on Oct 1, settlement and census certificate holders were also considered refugees.
“I was once the Director of Settlement Division and Secretary of State Internal Affairs under the Chief Minister Department. The registration of new Imm13 is no longer relevant,” he said.
He questioned if there was a new interpretation of refugees in Sabah and if so it must be referred to the UNHCR for clarification and confirmation.
IMM13 was issued by the Immigration Department, ‘burung burung’ by the Chief Minister’s Dept, and census certificates were issued by the National Security Council (NSC).
The timebomb ticking away in Sabah is the thousands of dubious IC holders who could not convert to the MyKad by the end 2006 deadline. They are reportedly not in the NRD data bank. No one knows what became of them.
Also, the federal government has since decided that children of “stateless people” would be admitted to government schools.
Jahid contended that if the roles were reversed and such highly questionable practices took place under the watch of the ousted government, Leiking would have been the first up in arms and relentless in his outcry.-pr/BNN
