Kota Kinabalu: There are more illegal immigrants in the State than originally thought. Hence, the State Government has decided to give them another week to register under the current 5P exercise.State Secretary Datuk Sukarti Wakiman who revealed this at the end of the two week 5P registration programme on Monday, said they could now still register until Aug 8.
He stressed that after registering all these illegal immigrants must leave Sabah shores before they are allowed to re-enter legally to work in the State.
"The number of immigrants who have registered is more than what was expected, (notwithstanding) the large number of them registered and legalised in 2008 and 2009," he said after a State Security Committee meeting.
"We did not expect the number to be still so high. Therefore we have decided to extend the registration until next Monday, in the hope that all those who have yet to register would take the opportunity to do so," he said.
In this respect, State Immigration Director, Muhammad Mentek, reiterated that all illegal immigrants must return to their respective countries before they are allowed to re-enter the State.
"They must all go back and get all relevant things done before they are allowed to come back here legally," he said.
The extension for the 5P programme (registration, forgiveness, monitoring, enforcement and expulsion) was also due to pleas from various parties and employers.
"The registration process, which involved a total of 117 immigration officers and 68 registration counters statewide, will continue from morning till 5pm including weekends daily, up to next Monday," Sukarti said.
Meanwhile, he said a total of 116,898 immigrants (with dependents) had registered through the nine designated locations as well as the outreach programme in three districts as of July 30 statewide, and not 300,000 as reported on Monday.
Of the nine locations, the highest number was recorded in Sandakan with a total of 22,925 (26.1 per cent) followed by Tawau (20,519) and Lahad Datu (17, 406).
A total of 32,389 illegals registered through the outreach programme as of July 30, with Lahad Datu recording the highest (20,458), followed by Sandakan (11,133) and Tawau 7,111 people, Sukarti said.
In this respect, he said Indonesians accounted for 74.28 per cent of the total, followed by Filipinos (25.35 per cent) and others.
On other developments, Mentek said there were companies making use of agents to register their foreign employers during the programme.
"However, we do not give priority to these agents when it comes to the registration process.
It is just that they have made earlier appointments," he explained.
In this respect, Sukarti said the immigrants were not supposed to be here in the first place, so there is no reason for them to complain about comfort or the long waiting period or anything like that when they are required to register and re-enter legally.
The 5P programme here which started on July 18 does not include the legalisation (Pemutihan) from the 6P programme being carried out in Peninsular Malaysia because the State had for the past four years (1988, 1997, 2008, 2009) implemented it in the amnesty programme.
