Sabah RCI: Senior NRD official provided a list of 60,000 illegal immigrants with IC

KOTA KINABALU: A senior National Registration Department official had provided a list of 60,000 illegal immigrants that acquired Malaysian identity cards illegally in the 1990s but no action was taken despite a police report lodged.

Disclosing this at the Royal Commssionion of Inquiry, Bingkor assemblyman Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said that the officer had showed him the list in a room after he had gone to the department to apply for replacement for his lost identity card.

The Sabah STAR chairman Dr Jeffrey said that the officer told him 'he felt sad that such a scenario was happening in Sabah.'

“The officer told me that these listed people would subsequently be included in the electoral roll. It was just a small number and many more were to come,’’ he told the five men panel headed by Tan Sri Steve Shim on Wednesday.

Jeffrey said he had informed the matter and handed over the list to the Parti Bersatu Sabah president Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan and left it up to them to proceed with actions.

"The then party secretary general Datuk Radin Malleh lodged a police report but I never heard if there was any follow up to the case," he added.

Jeffrey said this as an example of some of the vital matters that were left unattended although it involved the state sovereignty of the country and people feared voicing their concerns as the laws like the now abolished Internal Security Act that was used.

“Those who wished to pursue and voice out more of such similar incidents or other issues would end up just like me in Kamunting camp,’’ said Dr Jeffrey who detained under the ISA in 1991 for an alleged plot to take Sabah out of Malaysia.

Dr Jeffrey also said that he met a `Haji’ a long time ago with a sack of Blue ICs, claiming that those were from the Project IC, which at that time was a project rumoured to be carried out syndicates to Malaysian identity cards to non-citizens through syndicates.

"All these ICs which have been given to those people will one day put Sabah at risk, in fact Sabah is already at stake.

“The most recent example is the Lahad Datu intrusion, many of the intruders killed were buried in different districts because they have our ICs," he claimed.

Dr Jeffrey also said there was need for rectification in how laws were enforced, change the existing practising in issuance of identity cards and eradicating corruption.