KUCHING: The Home Ministry is urged to reconsider and take Sarawak into account when introducing new policies in the wake of rectifying problems that have emerged in Malaya.
Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah (pic) stated that the federal government, in their haste to rectify problems in Malaya, often come up with blanket directive policies that will solve their problems with total disregard to Sarawak’s context.
“It’s happening to often,” she told a press conference yesterday, in response to a statement dated Sept 23 issued by the Home Affairs Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
According to Muhyiddin, one of the measures to solve the problem of illegal issuance and sale of Malaysian identity cards (MyKad) and birth certificates to foreign nationals is immediate termination of late birth registrations at all state National Registration Department (NRD) offices.
He also noted that the measure shall be made compulsory for it to be done only at the department’s headquarters to ensure checks and balances.
However, such measure has a negative impact — especially on Sarawakian natives. “There are still cases of genuine Sarawakians who were born and are living in Sarawak, but do not have any personal identification documents (IDs),” Fatimah pointed out.
“For us, it (immediate termination of late birth registrations) will complicate the existing
problem.”
Fatimah further recalled the establishment of a special task force (PPK) at the federal level in 2015 where it was tasked to work with the state NRD to help genuine natives in rural areas to have personal ID adhering strictly to NRD standard operating procedures (SOPs) and circulars issued by the department.
The task force was terminated in 2019 and Fatimah implied that the termination was a shame.
She continued, “The new measures introduced will not only fail to solve, but will exacerbate the problems of our Sarawakian natives. Politics aside, we have to reconsider the context of all states in the country before enforcing a new policy.
“We know it is worrying, but we have to look into these problems because there are genuine cases of people who need help, as well as cases of those who are taking advantage of this situation. That is why we must have SOPs to tell them apart,” she added.
