Kota Kinabalu: Lack of government officers with integrity, particularly in the NRD and Immigration, is what caused Sabah to suffer a longstanding problem regarding illegal immigrants and foreigners, said United PasokMomogun Organisation (Upko) Sec-Gen Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau. He said this was based on his working experience as a researcher at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) in the 1980s.
Tangau was testifying as the 117th witness at the hearing of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the huge presence of illegal immigrants in Sabah, here, on Tuesday.
"The problem (huge presence of illegal immigrants in Sabah) is enormous and having no integrity would result in a never ending issue although there are methods to tackle it.
"I am saying this because it is an issue of basic integrity that needs to be addressed like in the National Registration Department (NRD) and Immigration Department," he said.
He was responding to conducting officer Manoj Kurup who asked suggestions and recommendations to resolve the perennial problem in the State.
In this respect, Tangau said the problem must be resolved by resetting the whole system to zero for the sake of integrity and recalling all the MyKads holders in Sabah.
Subsequently, he said re-issuing the MyKads is a process that could address dubious and fake MyKad holders in Sabah among foreigners as well as for the holders to prove they are bona fide citizens.
When RCI Chairman Tan Sri Steve Shim asked Tangau on the mechanism for the proposal, Tangau said party president Tan Sri Bernard Dompok would provide more detailed information on Friday, as to how to reset the system and recall the holders of the documents before re-issuing the MyKads.
"When a parliamentary select committee for integrity was created and Dompok was the chairman, both the Director-General of NRD and Director-General of Immigration Department refused to testify in the committee.
"Because of that, Dompok had resigned from the post as Chairman of the Committee.
"During the Parliament Select Committee for Election Reform, two cases of issuance Malaysian blue ICs to foreigners in Tawau were submitted to the Committee and revealed that the manufacturing of ICs was going on not only in the 1980s but until 1990s.
"Ten per cent of the respondents pointed out that people knocked on their doors to offer to possess the ICs and 90 per cent had purchased the Malaysian identification documents," he said.
Hence, Tangau who is also Tuaran MP, said it is imperative for the authorities particularly NRD and Immigration Department including stakeholders to agree and accept that there is a problem and only then a credible solution can be created.
Apart from that, he proposed that Hassnar Ibrahim be called to testify in the RCI hearing as the latter is in the know as to who were actually involved in the issuance of Malaysian ICs to foreigners.
"It is important for Hassnar to testify in this RCI as he was among the witnesses in the petition of the Likas by-election before and he had mentioned those names involved.
"Therefore, he could be the star witness in the inquiry here and reveal those involved in the issuance of ICs to foreigners," he said.
Tangau said he was never satisfied with the replies given by certain authorities in Parliament on the extraordinary increase of population in Sabah which only had about 300,000 people in the 1950s and surged drastically to over three million people in 2010.
"Explanations given to me were that Sabahans are fertile and villagers in the rural areas have gained access to infrastructure and able to register with NRD and as voters, are totally unacceptable.
"In the past, the population of Sarawak was more than Sabah but now Sabah's population is higher than Sarawak when there are many remote villages in Sarawak.
"I will continue to highlight this issue and get the satisfying answers from the authorities in Parliament no matter how long it takes," he said.
