A-G 2018 Report: Unstable immigration system failed to capture entry-exit data of foreigners in M’sia

PUTRAJAYA: A total of 214,398 or 23.5% of foreigners who entered the country between 2016 and 2018 have no record of leaving, according to the Auditor-General's Report 2018 (Series 3).

That number is derived from 912,374 foreigners whose entry to Malaysia were recorded by the Immigration Department.

In 2016, 307,991 foreign nationals had arrived in Malaysia of which, there were no record of 92,030 of them leaving, while in 2017, 81,945 out of 282,084 foreigners who entered the country have no record of leaving.

The audit done on the entry and exit of foreign nationals on social visit passes also found that of 322,299 arrivals in 2018, there is no documentation to show that 40,423 foreign individuals had left the country.

“As a follow-up to our audit analysis, the Immigration authorities had checked its system and found that of the 214,398 foreigners who had no record of leaving, 5,750 were confirmed to have left the country as of April 15 this year.

“Another 8,404 foreigners are here on long-term passes, such as resident and student passes as well as temporary work permits, ” said the report.

Immigration authorities had also informed the National Audit Department that 1,765 people had action taken against them by the enforcement unit.

“The remaining 198,479 foreigners have no record of leaving the country. The Immigration’s MyIMMs system cannot confirm their movement as the system had broken down 4,489 times between 2016 and 2018, ” said the report.

The National Audit Department also had chosen 300 people from the record of 214,398 foreigners who had not left the country and found that they had overstayed.

According to records, these foreigners had overstayed for 121 days to 1,087 days or close to three years in Malaysia without permission.

The auditors had received an explanation from the Immigration authorities that among reasons why there were no records of foreigners leaving is because of system integration problems which caused the MyIMMs system to become unstable.

“Because the system is not stable, some of the data recorded by officers on confirmation of entry and exit cannot be captured by the system, ” said the report.