'It may encourage more illegal immigrants to 'swim' into Sabah'
Published on: Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Likas Assemblyman, Junz Wong is concerned over the idea of issuing special passes to stateless children because it might lead to greater social problems. Wong said he was not entirely objecting to the idea but he believed it needed more details for proper analysis to understand the rationale for such move by the relevant Ministries. He said he was worried that this could encourage more illegal immigrants to "swim" into Sabah.
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He suggested Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, who is in charge of this relevant committee, hold public forums, engage citizens, explain what the actual idea is all about and how to go about achieving the objective. Accordingly to news reports, the government planned to keep the stateless children under a centre to provide them with education and training so they could be trained and be qualified to join in the workforce. In this respect, Wong who is also DAP Sabah Organising Secretary hoped that the relevant persons be it Pairin or Community Development and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Jainab Ahmad look into the following questions:1. What is the status of the stateless children after they are been trained and are eligible to work in Sabah for good?
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2. How many stateless children are there in Sabah? 3. What are the eligible ages to apply for such special pass?
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4. What kind of jobs are being considered to offer to them? 5. How much allocation government plans to spend to educate them including school and squatter facilities? 6. How much allocation government plans to spend to train them including faculty facilities?7. How long does the education and training programme last? 8. How to safeguard the interests of our Sabah children in future to make sure that job opportunities would not be taken away by the trained stateless children? 9. What will be the status of the stateless children's future generations? 10. Will these exercises if implemented, aim to resolve stateless children for once and for all or this is going to be a long term programme to deal with stateless children problem? "I urge the relevant ministries and committee to look into the questions seriously before even thinking about implementing such exercise. I am sincerely worried about what the government is planning to do, may really lead to bigger social problems in future," he said. On the same note, Wong reminded the State government that there were still many genuine Sabahan children in the interior areas who have not even got their birth certificates, identity cards and other relevant documents. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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