KOTA KINABALU: Sabah opposition leader Shafie Apdal has warned that he will take legal action against anyone who continues to accuse his party of giving MyKads to foreigners.
This is after assistant minister in the chief minister’s department Abidin Madingkir stated that the state government had no authority to issue the personal document during his winding-up speech today.
Abidin was initially responding to a query by another assemblyman who had asked about the issuance of a supposedly new identity card. The claim had made the rounds on social media recently.
After Abidin said the federal government has never issued any documents other than the MyKad, Shafie asked: “So, you are (also) saying the state government has no authority to issue MyKads, correct?
“I just want to make sure because out there, (particularly) during elections, all sorts of things were said about me issuing MyKads – but since when can a chief minister or state government do so?”
Shafie, the Senallang assemblyman, said Warisan’s detractors had often accused him and his party of issuing MyKads to non-Malaysians in the past.
The former chief minister said they had also attempted to liken the Sabah Temporary Card (PSS), which was proposed during the Warisan administration but later scrapped, to issuing identity cards to foreigners.
“Even the PSS was proposed by the home ministry – and at that time the minister was the Bersatu president. He met up with me and proposed the document.
“I want this to be on record so it is affirmed that I have never issued MyKads, (and) that the Warisan government never issued the PSS.
“If I find out there are (further accusations), I will sue.”
Warisan’s political rivals had in the past accused the party of being friendly to undocumented migrants and also used the PSS as political ammunition during the Kimanis by-election in 2020 and last year’s state election.
The party’s defeat in Kimanis was widely attributed to the PSS issue. The PSS was intended to replace three different identification papers held by migrants in Sabah. - FMT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.