IC PROJECT PRESIDENT MAHATHIR?

By : DR CHONG ENG LEONG

DR. MAHATHIR defends the increase in Sabah’s population. Firstly let me reiterate Sabah’s population increase since 1970 and compare it to Sarawak’s.

From the table below, Sabah’s increase was three times Sarawak’s in 30 years. And, if we look at the racial breakdown of the increase. There must be something very abnormal about Sabah’s population increase from 1970 to 2000.

Tun Dr. M was first implicated in ICs issued to foreigners when a foreigner in possession of dubious IC was asked by Magistrate in KK Magistrate Court in Sept 1992 how he obtained his IC – the answer was “from a project called ‘Project President Mahathir’”.

This foreigner was jailed for two years and after release he was not repatriated but managed to get registered in Sabah electoral roll – until today his name is still a registered voter in the roll.

In 1998 there was a public hearing to decide if objected would-be new voters in Likas Constituency should be accepted or not. Those objected ones were asked by the Election Commission Registering Officer how they obtained their ICs – the answer was “from Project Mahathir”. This Registering Officer testified this fact in the 1999 Likas election petition trial.

A sworn testimony in the same trial by one Hassnar Ibrahim also revealed the fact that there were meetings chaired by the late Dato’ Megat Junid where it was told that Tun Dr. M approved the said Project. This was happening in the 80’s. This testimony was not challenged.

In the 90’s when Umno set foot in Sabah in 1991, an Umno Task Force was formed – its job was to look for foreigners and helped them to get ICs dubiously; then registered them as Sabah Umno members and in Sabah electoral roll – the purpose was to deny PBS’ victory in the next State election.

Do not forget that Mutalib M.D, who had written many book on Sabah dubious ICs in the hand of hundreds of thousands of foreigners, had a book written by him entitled “IC Projek Agenda Tersembunyi Mahathir?” published in late 2006. There was no response from Tun.

I submitted before the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity (PSC) in 2006 a detailed background leading to the extra-ordinary increase in Sabah’s population, implicating Tun Dr. M in the deliberate issuance of dubious ICs to foreigners.

Tun Dr. M was urged to rebut his role in this treacherous act by the then Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang who was Deputy Chairman of the PSC but to date Tun Dr. M did not do so – instead he now publicly defends Sabah’s population extra-ordinary increase and citizenship to migrants.

Tun says these migrants were qualified to be Malaysian citizens. If migrants and qualified to be our citizens – the first question is “why fasified Sijil Akuan to state birth of place being in Sabah thus new IC number coded -12-”? Or, “if naturalised, why their new IC numbers are not code -71- indicative of being born outside Malaysia”?

There are more than 700,000 Project IC citizens in Sabah now and about 200,000 of them in Sabah’s current electoral roll of about 950,000 names.

If they were properly granted citizenship, when and where was there any oath of allegiance to the country?

If Federal Government still insists that these migrants in Sabah who were granted Malaysian citizenship were truly Malaysians now, then Sabah State Government still has certain immigration power backdated to the formation of Malaysia, i.e. invoke the Inter-Governmental Committee Report Chapter III paragraph 16 sub-paragraphs (f) (ii) and (iii) – these new “citizens” are to be expelled to Peninsula just like what was done to Malaysian activist Harris Ibrahim few months ago when he was refused entry to Sabah allegedly on security ground. - Sabahkini