Anak Negeri advocates Sabah IC to filter out illegals
KOTA KINABALU: Parti Kerjasama Anak Negeri (Anak Negeri) will join other political parties, government and opposition, to advocate for the issuance of Sabah Resident Identity Cards (Sabah IC) as an effective tool to filter out fake citizens and ensure that only genuine Sabahans are beneficiary of state services.
Speaking while delivering the party's policy speech during its recent annual general meeting, President Datuk Henrynus Amin said successive regimes that helmed the Federal Government have not shown interest, nor the inclination or commitment to act on the proposed recall of all ICs in Sabah in spite of the glaring evidence of fraudulent ICs being issued to foreigners by illegal syndcates operating deep within the federal system.
Henrynus noted that UPKO President Datuk Seri Panglima Wilfred Madius Tangau who is also Sabah Deputy Chief Minister, has strongly voiced out his party's demand for the recall of all ICs in Sabah.
However, he said Madius, in spite of his consistency in voicing out UPKO's demands, has no legislative muscles or political influence to convince his own Warisan-led state government to act on the matter.
He said Anak Negeri noted the fact the Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, and the Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, were both muted on the recall of all ICs in Sabah.
He said the Law Minister Datuk VK Liew may have revealed the true intention of the Pakatan Harapan Federal Government when he shot down calls for the recall and reissuance of all identity cards in Sabah.
He said federal lack of interest or commitment to the IC recall in Sabah was further confirmed by the statement attributed to the Federal Minister of International Trade Datuk Darrel Leiking who has described the recall of ICs in Sabah as impractical.
He said Sabahans are not oblivious or blind to the fact recall of ICs in Sabah in order to weed out fake ones is not even mentioned in the PH Manifesto.
“Therefore consistently hammering the Federal Government on the recall of ICs in Sabah is an exercise in futility and a waste of time.”
Henrynus said the Sabah state government has a viable option to deal with fake citizens by carrying out its own registration exercise to issue State Residence ICs through the local authorities solely for state administrative purposes.
He said federal approval is not required for the issuance of Sabah Resident ICs to genuine Sabahans for state purposes since the administration of local government in Sabah is strictly a state matter.
He said there is no law to stop, not even a federal law can stop the Sabah Government from exercising its constitutional right to enact state laws to allow for the registration of local residents solely for state purposes.
He said the enactment of legislation on local government is purely a state matter and the Sabah State Govetnment has the sovereign right under the Federal Constitution to enact, amend and implement laws under the local government ordinance without federal interference.
He said based on his information the necessary legal framework on the registration of local residents (pendaftaran penduduk tempatan) by local authorities for state purposes is already provided for under the Sabah Ministry of Local Government and Housing.
He said he had checked and verified his facts with Datuk Seri Panglima Hajiji Hj Noor who was formerly minister of Local Government and Housing in the previous administration.
According to him, Hajiji has actually introduced a policy to register all local residents in Sabah during his term as minister but the registration exercise never took off the ground due to lack of funds.
“The issuance of Sabah resident identity card as a practical tool to identify and weed out fraudulent ICs in Sabah is Anak Negeri's top agenda based on its five-point political agenda for the state,” he said.
“There is a need for all political parties in Sabah regardless of political ideology to cooperate and resolve issues related to fraudulent ICs by enacting the relevant state laws to issue state residence ICs to all genuine Sabahans,” said Henrynus.
He said after its annual general meeting this year Anak Negeri will begin the process of aggregating the views of its grassroots supporters all over Sabah to advocate and build up public support for the issuance of State Residence Identity Cards to all genuine Sabahans.
He said inter party cooperation involving government and opposition political parties in Sabah is possible since Darell in his personal capacity seemed agreeable to the issuance of Sabah ICs and his stand on the matter was echoed by Terrence Siambun who disagreed with a statement attributed to DAP Wanita Chief and Kepayan Assemblywoman Jannie Lasimbang who unwittingly revealed that the state government has no intention of implementing the Sabah IC proposal.
He said the success or effectiveness of the state resident registration exercise or issuance of Sabah resident IC intended to weed out fake citizens is predicated upon its correct, strict and transparent implementation.
In order to prevent abuse, he said applicants for a resident identity card must fill in special forms where the entire family identity or history, proof of residence since birth or place of origins in addition to normal citizenship documents such as birth certificates are verified by village chiefs, native chiefs and district officers as third class magistrates.
He said the Sabah resident identity card is a supplemantary identification card to be used together with the national identity cards for state administrative purposes such as the issuance of a trading licenses, permits, approval of job application and land application and as proof of residence to qualify as beneficiary of state services.