KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is a step closer towards solving its long-standing illegal immigrant and stateless people issue with the completion of a pilot project digitalising data of immigrants.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said the main project involving the whole state is expected to start soon as they aim to complete their data collection by Dec 31, this year.
He said the pilot project conducted on over 14,000 respondents from the Sawit Kinabalu estate found that almost half of them were illegals.
“We gathered the data from a total of 14,855 foreigners, half of whom are illegals, while the rest, including their dependents, are here illegally,” he said during a press conference here Friday (June 2).
Kitingan said the main objective of the data collection is to digitalise the data for safekeeping and to draw up subsequent action plans to tackle the issue.
He said the Immigration and police are not roped in to help in this data collection because the foreigners would not come out voluntarily if enforcement officials were involved.
“The pilot project is open to Sawit Kinabalu and close to Sawit Kinabalu, for the purpose of our digitalisation of data project,” he said, adding that other stakeholders will only be involved once policies and implementations begin.
He said once the main project starts, teams involved in it will go to all over Sabah to get the data needed, which includes biometric and facial recognition.
Kitingan said they will also go to squatter areas and get the information of stateless people on islands. The sea gypsies, however, are in a different category, he said.
“We have to train the members of these teams and we need resources and manpower to get maximum impact,” he said, adding getting the respondents to come forward voluntarily was also a challenge.
“Once we have the data, we will know how many there are here and what’s the next step. We can know how many locals and non-locals work in the various industries across the state and we will be able to regulate the population in the country,” he said.
Kitingan said this project is, among others, meant for the purpose of regulating and protection of human rights.
