Pairin set to give evidence to RCI tomorrow

After a three-week break, the Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah resumes tomorrow at the Kota Kinabalu High Court with former Chief Minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan (pic) expected to be the first to testify.

Pairin, who served as Sabah Chief Minister from 1985 to 1994 and is a deputy chief minister in the present government, will be queried about his knowledge of Project IC, where thousands of illegal immigrants in the state were allegedly issued Malaysian identity cards indiscriminately.

The project is said to have started in the early 1990s following the entry of Umno into Sabah and is alleged to have been spearheaded by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. There have been claims that up to 700,000 illegal immigrants were issued identity cards with a large portion registered on the electoral roll.

Witnesses such as former senator Dr Chong Eng Leong, former Sabah state secretary Tan Sri Simon Sipaun and Pairin's younger brother Jeffrey Kitingan have all taken the stand and told the RCI what they know about the issue.

The common denominator for all witnesses was that the government was responsible for Sabah being flooded by thousands of immigrants, both legal and illegal. There has been anger at how the natives of Sabah are now grossly outnumbered by Indonesians and Filipinos.

The five-man RCI panel led by former Sabah and Sarawak Chief Justice Tan Sri Steve Shim Lip Kiong has heard the testimony of about 200 witnesses. It is understood that the latest RCI session will see a host of prominent politicians giving their testimony.

The others on the panel are former Universiti Malaysia Sabah vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Kamaruzzaman Ampon, former Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Henry Chin Poy Wu, former Sabah State Secretary Datuk KY Mustapha and Tan Sri Herman J Luping, who is also former Sabah Attorney-General.