LIMITED......The
much-awaited RCI is limited in scope, as such it will strictly investigate the
number of immigrants in Sabah who have been issued identity cards or
citizenship.
By : QUEVILLE TO
KOTA KINABALU: The city
police are making preparations for the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI)
hearing on the illegal immigrants issue in Sabah. The RCI hearing will commence
on Jan 14.
City police chief ACP Jauteh
Dikun made an inspection on Friday of the Kota Kinabalu court house here, the
venue of the hearings to investigate the decades-long allegations that the
government had helped thousands of illegal immigrants gain citizenship in
return for votes to the ruling coalition.
The RCI is expected to call
48 witnesses to give testimony before four commissioners appointed by the government
to conduct the inquiry.
The four are former
Universiti Malaysia Sabah vice-chancellor Kamaruzaman Ampon, ex-Sabah
Attorney-General Herman Luping, former Sabah State Secretary KY Mustafa and
Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation deputy chairman, Henry Chin Poy Wu.
Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry secretary-general
Saripuddin Kasim has been appointed the secretary of the commission.
The inquiry is limited in
scope by the terms of reference and is aimed strictly at investigating the
number of immigrants in Sabah who have been issued identity cards or
citizenship.
Their investigation would
specifically focus on whether the issuance of the blue identity cards or
citizenship to the immigrants was made based on the law.
The RCI will also
investigate whether those who obtained the blue identity card or temporary
identification receipt (blue) or citizenship illegally were registered in the
electoral rolls.
Apart from that, the RCI
would also investigate whether the relevant authorities had taken any action or
made efforts to improve standard procedures, methods and regulations to avoid
non-compliance with the law in regard to the matter.
Further investigation will
also be conducted on matters pertaining to the standard operating procedures,
methods and regulations on the issuance of the blue identity cards or
citizenship to immigrants in Sabah by taking into account international
standard and norms used in Malaysia.
Social Implications
The RCI was also set up to
find the cause for the extraordinary increase in the population in Sabah, based
on several categories, namely, Sabah people residing in the state, including
those who had been issued with blue identity card and citizenship through birth
certificates (late registration), foreign workers (including family members),
illegal immigrants (including family members) and refugees, as well as the
effects on the number of voters in the electoral roll.
In addition, the commission
will also investigate the social implications on the society in Sabah arising
from the issuance of the blue identity card or citizenship to immigrants and
the number of immigrants in Sabah who have been given the blue identity card or
citizenship by taking into account their status as stateless people.
On Thursday, Barisan
Nasional component Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) stoked the flames of a controversy
that the government has done its best to ignore till now.
The party’s
secretary-general Radin Malleh, a former police officer-turned-politician, said
that the party has gathered evidence that more than 70,000 illegal immigrants
in the state were granted Malaysian citizenship by the federal authorities.
He said the majority of the
ICs were genuine but alleged that they were obtained using information
supported by forged declaration letters.
Radin said he had been
called by the RCI to give a statement on Jan 3 but was unable to do so as the
party was still verifying and compiling the list of dubious voters dating back
to between 1994 and 1999 and the scores of police reports made.
“I promised the commission
then that I will come if I detect these names, so today I have handed over the
lists.
“The number we have detected
is 73,985 illegals,” he reportedly said yesterday after handing over the
evidence in the form of the name lists to the RCI.
For more than two decades,
despite mounting evidence that something was not right in the population growth
of the state and the voter numbers in various constituencies, the Umno-led
ruling BN coalition brushed aside calls for a royal inquiry.
However, with its local
component parties facing internal revolts and the threat of them pulling out of
the ruling coalition looking ever more likely for them to survive, Prime
Minister Najib Tun Razak threw in the towel and announced the setting of the
RCI last year, albeit one that is limited in its scope to investigate.
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