Shafie reveals meeting minutes to prove PSS is BN's plan

KIMANIS POLLS | Sabah Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal has revealed the minutes of a meeting to prove that the Sabah Temporary Pass (Pas Sementara Sabah, PSS) was BN’s idea when it was ruling the state.

Shafie then went on to challenge the opposition leaders, specifically Joseph Pairin Kitingan, to sue him if what he said was a lie.

He said the minutes clearly showed that the PSS was suggested during a meeting chaired by Pairin himself in 2016.

“What they (the opposition) said is not true. I only picked out what was in the meeting minutes chaired by him (Pairin) in 2016, but he said yesterday that I was lying and that there are no minutes.

“The contents of the minutes are clear, we did not invent or create, I really hope that people would not use social media in this campaign to treat what’s coming from them that is untrue as if it is true.

“This is the suggestion of the former rulers… last time (BN) suggested a resident pass. Until this happened we said do not do resident passes… so we said this is temporary, it is a temporary pass,” Shafie said when met by reporters in Bongawan, Kimanis, today.

Last night, at a gathering in Kimanis, Pairin (above), who was a former chief minister of Sabah, said Shafie was lying when he claimed the PSS was approved by BN during its administration.

Pairin said the claims were baseless as he did not chair the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) in handling the problem of undocumented migrants in Sabah at that time.

“Even though I am already on pension, but my name keeps being mentioned in the papers. They keep mentioning my name as if to connect me with PSS.

“PSS did not exist in our book, in the RCI report. What is said in the book was about resident passes, not PSS.

“They (Warisan) have said that the RCI suggested the formation of PSS,” Pairin said.

The PSS is a document issued by the Immigration Department for foreigners, to replace existing documents that are IMM13, Kad Burung-Burung and Sijil Banci.

This comes after a decision made by the Foreign Citizens Management Committee on Sept 6, 2019, which was later announced by Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on the same day.

IMM13 holders are Filipino refugees who escaped to Sabah in the 1970s. This resulted from increased violence from separatists in the Mindanao region which saw many refugees during the Marcos regime.

Economic migrants were given the Kad Burung-Burung in the 1980s whereas the Sijil Banci was issued in the 1990s.

IMM13 is issued by the Immigration Department, the Kad Burung-Burung by the Sabah Chief Minister’s Department (JKM) and the Sijil Banci is issued by the National Security Council (NSC).

On this matter, Shafie said what was suggested by the former administration that is good would be maintained and improved upon by his administration.

Shafie, who is a former Umno vice-president, said the people of Kimanis are not influenced by this PSS issue, which has been played up during the Kimanis by-election.

“The rakyat here wants facilities, job opportunities for their children, better roads and restored houses.

“They rejected the former rulers because they failed to govern the state properly,” Shafie added. - Mkini