Jamain
KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Progressive Pary (SAPP) Youth Movement welcomed the statement by Dato Seri Hamzah Zainuddin, Minister of Home Affairs who announced the use of digital identity cards this year to eradicate fake MyKads throughout Malaysia.
SAPP Youth Chief Jamain Sarudin said fake MyKads was a decades-old issue faced by Sabah, a consequence of the infamously known “Projek IC” which started during the Mahathir era until the state faced severe problems of massive dubious and illegally obtained MyKads by illegal immigrants.
Jamain said should the government introduce the Digital Identity (ID) Card and implement the National Digital Identity Initiative (IDN), it was feared that it would not resolve the issue of the Projek IC in Sabah particularly.
He added that Sabah needs a different mechanism and it is time to introduce Sabah IC for genuine Sabahans, not as a replacement for MyKad but as a guarantee the identity of local Sabahans are protected, regardless of race and religion. Sabah is known to have a foreign population consisting of large numbers of illegal immigrants (undocumented and ‘documented’) numbering hundreds of thousands left unresolved till now.
“In 2012, the idea of Sabah IC was brought up by SAPP to address the issue of dubious MyKad owned by foreigners and illegal immigrants. A Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants (RCI) reported widespread issuance of identity cards through dubious means (Projek IC) which changed the demographics of Sabah as a whole.
“These dubious MyKad holders were found in the Sabah electoral lists sometimes referred as ‘phantom voters’.’
Jamain, who is also the Deputy Youth Chief of the Perikatan Nasional Malaysia, urged the state government to also implement the Sabah IC, to give recognition to the Malaysian citizens in Sabah. He said Sabah IC must have its own characteristics and privileges such as entering higher institutes of learning, holding government positions, owning a business license or owning native lands.
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