Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) adviser Joseph Pairin Kitingan shot back at DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang for casting doubt on the former’s work on handling Sabah’s problems with non-citizens.
In a statement yesterday, Pairin said his role in resolving the problem was limited to heading a “technical committee” following the royal commission of inquiry on Sabah’s immigrant population woes.
Pairin said the main decision-makers were the prime minister and Sabah chief minister.
“I conducted several meetings whilst receiving many proposals and suggestions via memorandums submitted by political parties, organisations and individuals.
“All those proposals and suggestions I considered to be meritorious and worth considering by the government were brought to the main committee.
“So I conveyed my views to the prime minister, the chairperson of the main committee for its consideration and final decisions,” he said in a statement last night.
The royal commission was formed in 2013 to study allegations that irregularities in awarding citizenship resulted in Sabah’s population boom.
Eventually, the royal commission concluded that corrupt government officials and syndicates were to blame for issuing identity cards to unqualified individuals in a scheme often dubbed “Project IC” or “Project M”.
Following this, then prime minister Najib Abdul Razak appointed Pairin as the head of the working committee to act on the royal commission report in 2014.
Pairin then alluded that Sabah’s non-citizen woes stemmed from the policies of Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s administration between 1981 and 2003.
“The history of how Sabah people, genuine Malaysian citizens and political parties fought against the onslaught of these illegal immigrants, or PTI as they are popularly known, is very well known and documented, last but not least by the hearing of the RCI conducted in 2014.
“The RCI hearing confirmed the huge problem of the presence of the illegal immigrants and revealed without a doubt that there was a deliberate political agenda through what is now popularly known as Project IC.
“Mahathir was prime minister for a lengthy period of 22 years before he was again sworn in as prime minister with the support also of the political party known as DAP in 2018,” said Pairin.
The royal commission did not identify Mahathir or any other politician as the masterminds behind “Project IC”. However, Mahathir’s then aide Aziz Shamsuddin was implicated.
Meanwhile, Lim in a statement today urged Pairin to reveal all the proposals that he had made to the prime minister.
“Could Pairin state them, or were all his proposals rejected?” asked Lim.
To date, Pairin’s committee has yet to report its recommendations to the public.
The 2020 census revealed that nearly a quarter of Sabah’s population consisted of non-citizens. - Mkini
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