LONG KEVOK (Ulu Baram): The Govern-ment has roped in corporate giants to help locate and register folks who have no identity cards and birth certificates in Sarawak’s interiors.
The corporations will provide logistical and financial support for the massive, multi-pronged and integrated effort.
“We are bringing in Petronas and some timber companies to help out,” said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.
“I am confident we can resolve this problem within a year,” he said after handing over birth certificates and MyKads to the first batch of Penans here yesterday.
Hishammuddin said the federal and state governments were forming special teams of officials from the National Registration Department, courts and district offices to identify those in the longhouses and villages who had no documents.
“We must resolve this issue soon or it will drag on for the next 10, 20 or even 50 years,” said Hishammuddin.
“We are facing logistical difficulties trying to locate those who have no ICs and birth certificates. We don’t face such logistic woes in peninsular Malaysia, that is why we must deploy these special teams into the interior in a more systematic and comprehensive manner,” he added.
Long Kevok is eight hours by road from Miri. There are some 800 Penans living here and 29 got their documents yesterday.
Hishammuddin said the ministry had targeted end of 2011 as the deadline for the registration of ICs and birth certificates for late applicants.
“I hope all those still left out will take this chance to get themselves registered,” he said.
