Don't use middlemen, Indonesians here told
Published on: Friday, December 19, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: Indonesian nationals in the State were reminded to turn to the Indonesian Consulate General office here for help instead of hiring middlemen to solve their problems."This office is for you, this is your home. Don't be shy, don't be afraid to come here for help. I have met some Indonesians who got into trouble with the law here and when I asked them why they didn't come to the office, they said they were scared."Scared of what? You are scared to come here and yet you go out, walk around in the public like nobody's business and then you were caught for not having valid documents or for committing offences.
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"Even worse, middlemen will come in making promises to get you out of trouble. You will lose money over this. I would like to remind you, don't make deals with middlemen," said its Consul General Akhmad DH. Irfan.Irfan was speaking during the Marriage Registration Exercise for non-Muslim Indonesian couples in Sabah at the consulate office here, Thursday.Also present was Indonesian Home Ministry Public Administration Director, Sutejo.Irfan also advised Indonesians here to adhere to the local laws as failure to do so would only tarnish the name of Indonesia as a whole.
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"Do you know how many Indonesians in Malaysia are facing the gallows because of drugs and other offences? 186. That is a big number. It is bad for your own image here."People will say, you are lawbreakers and we do not want that. Therefore let us together, take care of our image," he said.
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A total of 313 non-Muslim couples registered to get their marriages recorded by the Indonesian government.They would be attended by pastors and priests flown all the way from Jakarta to assist in their marriage registration which is handled by the Religious Affairs Ministry.According to Irfan, there are about 10,000 unregistered Muslim and non-Muslim marriages in Sabah and the consulate is doing its best to get all the couples to register their marriages with the Indonesian government."For Muslim couples, we have done this since 2011 and this is the first for non-Muslim couples. In fact, we are the first Indonesian consulate office to do this among all 139 Indonesian consulate offices in the world," he said.The three-day exercise which will end on Saturday is a requirement by the government to ensure that children born through the marriages can be issued Indonesian birth certificates and passports.This, he said, is also to assist Indonesian government officers to authenticate the statuses of the children since there have been cases where people tried to claim Indonesian citizenship only to be proven that they were in fact citizens of other nations.Meanwhile, Indonesian Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo said one of the responsibilities of the Indonesian government is to provide protection and acknowledgement to the civil and public statuses of its citizens, whether those living in the country or abroad.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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