By : BOO SU-LYN
KOTA KINABALU : More than a
quarter of Sabah’s population are foreigners, a statistician told the Royal
Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants here today.
Sabah Department of
Statistics director Norezan Wahid said today that there were 889,000 foreigners
out of a 3.2 million-strong population in Sabah, about 28 per cent, based on a
2010 census.
“We don’t specify whether
they are legal or non-legal,” said Norezan at the RCI today.
He added that census-takers
did not have the authority to ask people to show documents proving that they
were citizens.
“In the census, we ask two
questions, whether you are a citizen or not,” he said.
National Registration
Department (NRD) deputy director of the citizenship division, Nik Norashikin
Nik Mansur, said that 66,682 people in Sabah received Malaysian citizenship
from 1964 to October 2012.
She added that 38,000 were
from Malaysia, 13,000 from China, 7,000 from Indonesia, while the rest were
from the Philippines, Hong Kong and other countries.
“Why Malaysia is the highest
number is because they were born in Malaysia and they don’t have any other
country of origin. So, their country of origin is stated as Malaysia,” said Nik
Norashikin.
Nik Norashikin, who wore a
purple headscarf, said that the home minister was the final authority when it
came to issuing citizenship.
She added that citizenship
certificates were kept in the record management centre in the NRD.
“We have records in the
system, but they are incomplete as they are from 2003 till now. The ones before
that are in physical form and are still being keyed into the system,” she said.
The inquiry, which is
chaired by former chief judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Steve Shim Lip
Kiong, resumes tomorrow.
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