PSS was a BN idea, says Warisan candidate

KIMANIS POLLS | Warisan candidate Karim Bujang has claimed that the Sabah Provincial Pass (PSS) was an idea introduced by the BN government which is now turning its back on it for political purposes.

Karim (above) said that even though BN lost in the 14th general election (GE14), the PSS was a good idea pursued by the Pakatan Harapan/Warisan government.

"The PSS idea came from the previous government, the people who did the study.

"Even though the (PSS) came from the previous government it was a good thing, so we continued," he said when met at Kampung Batu 6, Kimanis, today.

Yesterday, Umno supreme council member Rahman Dahlan has called on voters in Kimanis to reject Karim and send a message to Putrajaya over the Sabah state government's decision to introduce the PSS in June. 

The former minister said the PSS was a threat to Sabah's people and he described it as a Warisan scam against the people of the state, adding that it was not mentioned in the party's manifesto during the GE14 campaign.

"This is not just a Kadazan-Dusun-Murut issue as Muslims also don't want PSS. We have a lot of problems with illegal immigrants.

"Even on hospital beds, we fight with them (foreigners). Our children go to school and fight with them.

"We want them to realise that all Sabahans represented by Kimanis voters do not want and strongly reject PSS registration in Sabah," he said in a speech at Kampung Simpangan in Kimanis last night.

Rahman (photo) said he was confident that if PSS had been included in Warisan's manifesto, the party would not have done well in GE14.

The PSS will be issued to replace the IMM13, Kad Burung-Burung and Census certificates, which are now held by a total of 136,055 migrants in Sabah.

The PSS will be issued from June 1, and it is renewable every three years, at a fee of RM120.

It has become a heated topic harped on by the BN and Umno in the Kimanis by-election campaigns in the semi-urban constituency.

This Kimanis by-election will see a face-off between Karim and BN's Mohamad Alamin.

Both candidates had previously served as Bongawan state assemblyperson, which falls under the Kimanis constituency.

Karim, 67, was a five-term Bongawan state lawmaker under the Usno and Umno platforms, from 1990 to 2013. He joined Warisan last year.

Anifah won the Kimanis parliamentary seat with a slim majority of 156 votes in GE14. The Federal Court subsequently upheld the Aug 16, 2019 ruling of the Election Court that declared the victory of Anifah null and void.

Mohamad, who is fondly known as Toh Moh, is a 48-year-old Kota Kinabalu-based lawyer.

He succeeded Karim as the Bongawan state assemblyperson in 2013 but failed to retain his seat in the 2018 general election.

Kimanis is a semi-urban seat having 29,644 registered voters, with 63.16 percent of them being Muslim bumiputera, while 30.67 percent are non-Muslim bumiputra, 3.59 percent Chinese and 2.58 percent others. - Mkini