Tan Sri Harris Mohd Salleh
KOTA KINABALU:
Former chief minister Tan Sri Harris Mohd Salleh is ready to appear
before the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to investigate problems
related to illegal immigrants in Sabah.
“In order to relieve
pressure from a number of people who are anxiously looking forward to my
presence at the inquiry, I confirm that I will attend any time at any
place to give evidence and information on the issue of illegals.
“There
is no need to serve a subpoena to me. It is hoped that those people
will lower their ‘blood pressure’ after reading this statement,” he said
yesterday.
Harris said first of all, it must be emphasised and
stressed that the power of granting citizenship and issuing identity
card is vested with the federal government under the constitution and
law, and that such power is now vested with the Ministry of Home
Affairs.
“Under the constitution, the federal government can grant
citizenship to anyone at anytime even after a few days of arrival, if
it deems that person is of national interest. This is very clear and
written in ‘black and white’.
“Thus, the most any person can do is
to help making an application and make recommendation for those
eligible to apply for either a permanent stay or citizenship,” he said
in a statement yesterday.
Harris said secondly, it is the policy
of the federal government since late sixties or early seventies that
anybody who is eligible to become Malaysian citizen would be entertained
and granted.
He said this is particularly true to the refugees from Indo-China and later from the Philippines.
According
to him, the late Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, Malaysia’s first prime
minister, had announced publicly and openly, the policy that the federal
government would accept and take Muslim refugees from Myanmar and non
Muslims could go to Australia, Europe or USA.
Tunku Abdul Rahman
made this announcement when there were tens of thousands of Myanmar
Rohingya refugees coming to Malaysia, and it is expected that most of
them are now citizens, said Harris, citing an article published in The
Borneo Post on June 3, 2012.
“Tunku Abdul Rahman said very clearly
in no uncertain terms that those refugees who are Muslims can stay in
Malaysia and would be granted citizenship.
“This policy is still
valid today as the present Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak
just a year ago signed an agreement with Australia on refugee swaps —
Muslims to Malaysia and non-Muslims to Australia,” he said.
“Thus,
over the years out of the few hundred thousand Philippine refugees in
Sabah, some were issued with IMM13 to allow them to stay in Malaysia,
and they must have been accorded citizenship, thus the number of
population increase is a little bit higher than the normal.”
On
the issue of the illegal workers in Sabah, Harris said it appears that
there is no study being carried out as to why both employers and
employees become illegal, knowing full well the punishments are severe,
including whipping.
He contended that nobody seems to be interested to find out the truth into the bottom of this issue.
However, as pointed out from time to time there are about 200,000 illegal workers who come legally with passport.
But
over time and because of poor treatment by contractors and the high
government fees and policies which keep changing all the time, both
employers and employees seem to prefer illegal practice.
“It must
be noted here that being illegal workers, live is like hell; they cannot
travel around as they like and they will be arrested.
“The flow
of workers from Indonesia is not going to be forever. The Indonesians
and Indonesian government are just ‘sakit hati’ and are waiting for the
day when the Indonesian workers will work in their own country.
“This
is happening in Hong Kong; 10 years ago, mainland people worked in Hong
Kong, now the other way around,” said Harris, adding it is not
understood as to why the establishment of RCI has become more and more
easy these days.
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