‘Suluks had NRD receipts issued in Tawi-Tawi”

The RCI also heard the testimony of an Indian national who arrived in Sabah in 1984, received a blue identity card in 1986, collected his BR1M and voted in Likas constituency.

KOTA KINABALU: A field officer tasked with registering illegal immigrants in Sabah told the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) that some had obtained their Malaysian documentations even before they entered the state.

Macarius Sabinus said when he went to register the immigrants they were already in possession of temporary receipts known as “kad burung-burung” (among Suluks)  purportedly issued by the Malaysian authorities.

“When they came for registration, they already had the kad burung-burung in their hand, saying that they got them from somebody in Bongoa (in Tawi-Tawi).

“But the receipt’s had a different serial number and the Chief Minister’s Department’s (JKM) stamp is different from ours,” Sabinus, who is a researcher with think-tank Institute for Development Studies (Sabah) or IDS, under the state JKM told the hearing.

IDS which was formerly known as Institute for Public Policy Analysis (IPPA) had been tasked with registering illegal immigrants in Sabah from 1986 to 1988.

Sabinus said yesterday the project aimed to identify and find out the total number of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

He testified that the “kad burung-burung” while acting as a receipt acknowledging that the illegal immigrants had been registered, was not considered as  “identification” document.

According to Sabinus, some of the illegal immigrants who came forward to register themselves were already in possession of blue identity cards or National Registration Department (NRD) receipts.

The NRD receipts is a recognised document issued prior to the issuance of a blue identity card. It carried the same status as citizen.

Sabinus said thet were “instructed to register them as long as they did not have valid blue identity cards.

“We still registered them (as illegal immigrants) because they claimed that they got the (identity) card from somewhere else and not from the NRD,”  Sabinus said.

Sabinus said he was part of  12 teams comprising 12-13 personnel each who were involved in the survey.

He stressed that upon discovering these “kad burung-burung”  they had alerted the special branch and the JKM.

Sabinus said they did nothing more than the task of registering the illegal immigrants.

Quoting an instance, Sabinus said one of the persons who wanted to register bore a blue identity card even though he did not appear to be a citizen.

“He did not sound like a Malaysian, he could only speak Suluk and (fortunately,) I can also converse in Suluk,” he said.

Sabinus is the 109th witness in the ongoing RCI which began in January.

Statutory declaration

Meanwhile local online portal Borneoinsider reporting on the RCI wrote that an Indian national who arrived in Sabah had obtained Malaysian citizenship within two years.

Peer Mohamad Kadir who arrived in Sabah in 1984 on an Indian passport received his blue indentity card with the “help” of his uncle.

Peer then went on to join Rela and received the RM500 government aid – BR1M – for low income earners as well.

Peer, who was born in Chennai in Tamilnadu, told the RCI: “In 1986, my uncle helped me apply for a blue identity card at the National Registration Department in Kota Marudu.

“My uncle used a statutory declaration to apply for the blue identity card.”

Prior to 1991, the NRD accepted statutory declarations as evidence that one is a local-born Sabahan and this has been open to abuse.

Peer went on to state that even though he lost his blue identity card in 1992, he was given a temporary NRD receipt which he even used to vote, before eventually getting a proper replacement card.

He claimed that he even voted in the recent general election in the Likas constituency.

When interrogated by conducting officer Jamil Aripin,Peer who is a member of the Sabah Indian Muslim Chamber of Commerce, denied that his organisation had recruited Indian nationals and helped them obtain Malaysian citizenship.