Pairin Slams Hamzah Over Identity Cards For Foreigners

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Former Sabah chief minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan said he was happy chief minister Hajiji Noor had explained that the identity card was still a proposal.KOTA KINABALU: The paramount leader of the Kadazan Dusun Murut (KDM) community has taken home minister Hamzah Zainudin to task for his sudden announcement that the government is considering providing identity cards to foreign nationals in the state.
Joseph Pairin Kitingan, a former chief minister, said: “What the minister announced and advocated not only has created fear and uncertainty in Sabah but he seems to be deliberately going against the spirit of our Constitution and our immigration laws”.
Pairin, who is the Huguan Siou, or paramount leader of the KDM community, said the proposal went against common sense and the interests of genuine and law-abiding Malaysian citizens.
He urged the government to reduce misunderstanding and misinformation over the proposal.
“Do not give the impression that we are abandoning our own citizens,” he said. “We have immigration laws under which no foreign people can enter or be present in this country without valid immigration papers, especially valid passports. Those caught without valid documents must be deported.
“What we need now is strict enforcement of our immigration and other laws, just like the authorities are very strict in enforcing our Covid-19 SOP regulations.”
Hamzah had said the identity card would not give migrants citizenship or permanent resident status, but would allow foreign nationals to work in Malaysia legally and their children to attend school, he added.
The chief minister, Hajiji Noor, later said the document mentioned by Hamzah was actually a proposed “kad warga asing” (foreigner’s card) on which the Sabah government has yet to make a decision.
Pairin said a royal commission of inquiry on undocumented migrants in Sabah in 2012 had found that the government had to spend at least RM13 million annually to keep such migrants under temporary detention before they could be deported.
He welcomed Hajiji’s statement that no decision had yet been taken on the “kad warga asing”. - FMT

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