Double demo at Parliament gates

Two different demonstrations were held in front of Parliament this morning, but both had one theme - criticising the government.

KUALA LUMPUR: Two different groups demonstrated against the government in front of the Parliament’s gates this morning.

At around 10:30am, the larger of the two saw more than 80 Indians – many of them in their 60s – gathering to ask why the government had failed to give them their identity cards.

Much of the crowd seemed to be carrying red MyKads; an identity card reserved for permanent residents.

PKR vice-president N Surendran, who led the demonstration, said many of the 80-plus did not have MyKads even though they were born here.

He added that the crowd only represented a fraction of the 300,000 Indians without MyKads.

“We are here peacefully because we have a crisis, where more than 300,000 people have not been given their documents such as birth certificates and blue ICs.

“[Because of this], they are suffering because they do not have access to education, jobs, medicine or have the right to claim Socso or Employee Provident Fund (EPF) benefits!” he said.

Armed with a list of the people present, Surendran demanded that the 80-plus be given their MyKads within 48 hours.

He also demanded that the government “identify” the 300,000 and promptly give them their MyKads, or face nationwide protests in the future.

He added that if the government could grant immigrants in Sabah citizenship, they could do the same for Malaysian-born Indians.

Kapar MP (PKR) S Manickavasagam said that this problem even affected his family.

“My mother passed away last year at the age of 65. She was born in India, but she could never get the blue MyKad,” he said.

He then asked why it was so difficult for Indians to get ICs when foreigners could get them easily.

In a Parliamentary written response, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told Manickavasagam that 42,493 people had been given citizenships from 2008 to March 2 this year.

The minister added that a total of 225,222 people had been made permanent residents from 2008 to Feb 29 this year, including 162,233 Indonesians.

Anti-Time protest

The second demonstration was aimed at local telecommunications provider Time Dot Com, which was accused of sacking 549 of its workers without compensation.

Members of the 30-strong crowd claimed that they were let go by the company in November 2010.

According to group representative M Sarasvathy, the 549 were Time Dot Com workers who were transferred to a brand new subsidiary company known as Paycomm Networks Sdn Bhd.

She added that this company was then dissolved after six months, and that none of the workers were compensated, or given their much-needed benefits.

Sarasvathy added that 54.7% of Time Dot Com was indirectly owned by the Malaysian government, making it a government-linked-company (GLC).

(This is divided into a 30% Pulau Kapas Ventures Sdn Bhd stake, and a 24.7% Maju Nominees (Tempatan) Sdn Bhd stake.)

Khazanah Nasional Berhad in turn owns 70% of Pulau Kapas, while Bank Pembangunan dan Infrastruktur Malaysia Berhad owns 100% of Maju Nominees.)

Sarasvathy said that the workers had met with Human Resources Minister Dr S Subramaniam three weeks ago over the matter, but had failed to do anything since.

The workers then met with Sungai Siput MP (PSM) Michael Jeyakumar.