790,000 BARRED FROM LEAVING THE COUNTRY
447,890 are National Higher Education Fund loan defaulters
ATOTAL of 790,186 Malaysians have been blacklisted and barred from leaving the country for failing to settle payments to various government bodies.
Immigration director-general Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali said National Higher Education Fund loan defaulters formed the highest number of those blacklisted, with 447, 890 people.
Others are those declared bankrupt by the Insolvency Department (138,028) and those blacklisted by the Inland Revenue Board (107,884), Employees Provident Fund (7,024), Customs Department (6,091) and Immigration Department (1,543).
“For the convenience of travellers, we have opened Pre-Read Kiosks at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) for people to check their travel status before leaving the country.
“Before checking in, they must check whether they have been blacklisted by any agencies to avoid travel hassles.
“Some flights had to be postponed because airline staff had to unload the baggage of passengers who had been barred from boarding,” he said after launching the kiosks here yesterday.
The kiosks are at Level 5 of KLIA next to the Gate 1 and Gate 2.
Mustafar said the kiosks would ease the boarding process for passengers and the department.
“If anyone who has been blacklisted goes to the Immigration counter, they will be prohibited from leaving the country.
“With these kiosks, they can check their status and call the agencies that blacklisted them to solve their issues.”
He said the kiosks were offered via a public-private partnership with the company Datasonic, which provided the system.
He said Immigration planned to install the kiosks at klia2 in the near future.
“We will discuss with Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) to install the kiosks at klia2.
“There is also a plan to add autogates at the airports to deal with congestion at the main gateway.
“If we have enough funds, we plan to install autogates not only at airports, but also at Sultan Iskandar and Bukit Kayu Hitam,” he said, referring to the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complexes.
MAHB general manager (operations) Mohd Arif Jaafar said passengers were advised to check in early during the peak travel season to avoid long queues.
He said MAHB would work with agencies, including airline companies and Immigration, to ensure operations run smoothly.