'Hopping through gov't hoops like circus animals should end'

Former Sungai Siput MP D Jeyakumar hopes the new Pakatan Harapan government's will end the practice of making people hop through bureaucratic hoops.

The PSM central committee said one such example was a case in which he had been handling for eight years and had only become more complicated with a new government.

Jeyakumar said the case involved 57-year-old Kamaladevi (above, right) who had no personal documents and was effectively stateless.

"As a result, she has not been able to work, to get married, to open a bank account or even to apply for a motorbike license. She is completely housebound," he said in a statement.

Jeyakumar explained that Kamaladevi was brought into Malaysia in 1963 by her mother Kulanthaiammal, an Indian citizen who had married an estate worker in Sungai Siput and later obtained Malaysian citizenship.

Kamaladevi's brother received a red identity card but when it came to her turn, an identity card could not be issued because her mother's (Indian) passport and the attached entry permit could no longer be traced.

Jeyakumar said the family came to him in 2010 and after being given a runaround and he decided in 2013 to reach out to the former home minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

"Zahid referred me to the director-general of registration, and they, after failing to locate her entry permit, advised me to get her an Indian passport and use that to apply for an entry permit.

"That took a lot of effort and time for we first had to extract her birth certificate from Tamil Nadu, a process that required us to file an application at a magistrate's court in Tamil Nadu. We succeeded after more than a year.

"Then it took another year to apply for an Indian passport through the Indian High Commission in KL," he said.

'Start of troubles'

However, Jeyakumar said it was only the beginning of the problems because when they wanted to finally apply for a new entry permit from the Immigration Department, it was pointed out that Kamaldevi's father's name was spelt Thanapal in his Malaysian identity card but Dhanapal in Kamaldevi's birth certificate.

"Our explanation that the Tamil 'Th' alphabet can be written as 'Th' or 'Dh' when romanised was not accepted. The immigration wanted a letter from the Indian High Commission stating that," he said.

Jeyakumar (above) said after multiple trips to the Indian High Commission and their outsourced visa application services, they were told it could not be done. They finally turned to the Tamil Language Department at University Malaya for the confirmation.

"The visa section of the Putrajaya Immigration Department then found that her Indian passport did not have any entry chop which they said was highly irregular.

"We were then referred to the enforcement division of the Immigration Department to assess the penalty for her being in Malaysia since 1963 without proper documents.

"We were told we would have to pay a penalty of several thousand ringgit. Luckily for us the enforcement department cleared us and gave us a one-month special visa," he said.

Jeyakumar said after the Putrajaya and Ipoh immigration departments kept pushing the ball into each other's court, Kamaldevi was later told that she needed a written letter from the minister to approve her entry permit.

Jeyakumar said he obtained the letter from Zahid in March 2018 and was given a photocopy version while the original copy was to be sent to the visa section.

However, when the family went to the Putrajaya Immigration Department, they were told the photocopy version did not suffice and they had yet to receive the original.

'More headaches with new minister'

Jeyakumar later said Zahid's aides promised that the original letter would be forwarded to the department.

"Then the elections came, and the minister is no longer the minister. The Putrajaya visa section told us three days ago that the letter had arrived but that it is no longer valid as the minister has changed.

"In the meantime, Kamaladevi’s one-month special pass – the fourth - expires in five days and she has been asked to leave the country," Jeyakumar lamented.

Jeyakumar said he hopes this run-around will end under the new Pakatan Harapan government.

"Usually, it is the poor and uneducated who fail to keep their documents in order and it can really blight their lives. Kamaladevi is an example.

"She missed so many opportunities in life because of her identity card problem. And she is not the only one.

"We need a better system in place. I hope the Pakatan Harapan government will rise to the occasion. Let us be kinder to people like Kamaladevi," he said.

Jeyakumar suggested that the Home Ministry sets up a special committee to review and fast-track such cases. -Mkini