This is the price of handing out citizenship for votes

The question you may ask yourself after reading a few paragraphs of this story is: What if something like this were to happen in the peninsula too?

Where it’s happening is Sabah. What is happening, according to one key witness in a special court now looking into the issue of identity cards given to illegal residents there, is little less than the colonisation of a part of Malaysia.

While the accusation that illegal settlers were given Malaysian identity cards in return for their political support is well known, what is less known is what has come after this.

In return for their political support of the powers that be, those with the new ICs have been making open land grabs as well as soaking up healthcare and education privileges, said former Sandakan district officer Hassnar Ebrahim.

"Take a look at University Malaysia Sabah: 80% of the students studying there are not local Malaysians," he told The Malaysian Insider yesterday.

Hassnar testified in the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into The Illegal Immigrants In Sabah just last week, where he named former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the brains behind the scheme to offer illegals there Malaysian identity cards in return for their votes for Barisan Nasional.

"There is no country in the world where the government intentionally dilutes the voting power of the native population like in Malaysia," he noted wryly.

"Thousands of acres of native land have slowly been taken over by foreigners who use forged powers of attorney documents and forged sales and purchase agreements," he claimed.

So big was the problem that even Sabah and Sarawak Chief Justice Tan Sri Richard Malanjum had called for a Native Land Tribunal to be set up to handle abuses caused by the issuance of native land certificates, he said.

Hassnar told of his personal experience as a victim of a naked land grab by the former illegals.

"I have asked the police, how is it that native land is able to find its way into the hands of non-natives when that is clearly against the law?” he said.

He claimed he personally has lost millions of ringgit through numerous scams and fraud involving native land in Sabah but police always turned a blind eye to his reports.

"In the 1980s, I bought more than 10,000 acres of native land. In the early ’90s, I lost almost 9,000 acres of land worth RM72 million.

"I have lodged over 20 police reports regarding the fraudulent activities surrounding the land that was stolen from me. But all I hear from the police is that they are still investigating," he said.

Fed up with police inaction, Hassnar is seeking remedy in the courts.

He also gave a specific example of how fake identities were being created in Sabah to earn Malaysian privileges.

He told of an Indonesian who bought the identity documents of a local boy who died in 1975.

He said the Indonesian, Abdullah Abeautullah, who arrived in Sabah in the 1970s married a Malaysian, using forged identity documents.

"But there was no record of his identity during the time of his marriage. So what documents did Abdullah use to get married?" Hassnar questioned.

"In 2009, Abdullah came to possess an identity card with the name of Halim Ahmad. Checks revealed that Halim Ahmad was a boy who died in 1975, but his parents didn't register his death."

Hassnar and former senator Dr Chong Eng Leong lodged police reports over the matter but claimed that until today, no action has been taken.

He also noted that many immigrants in Malaysia, whether they held identity cards or not, sent most of their salaries back to their country of origin.

"On the other hand, Malaysian taxpayers dutifully pay their dues every year. The irony is that they are seeing their hard-earned taxes being used to support these immigrants," he added.