Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah

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The Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah was formed on 11 August 2012 to investigate the problems relating to citizenship and immigrants in the state of Sabah in Malaysia. The inquiry is closely related to Project IC, the alleged systematic granting of citizenship to foreigners.

Contents

Background

On 1 June 2012, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the federal government has agreed to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to investigate problems related to illegal immigration in Sabah. [1] The Attorney-General of Malaysia was entrusted to draw the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the purpose of the commission. On 11 August 2012, the government officially announced the formation of the RCI including the members of the commission and the TORs. Political commentators have observed that the RCI appears to be a knee-jerk reaction to the defection of several prominent Sabahan BN politicians, who resigned in protest only a few days earlier because of the federal government's reluctance to deal with Sabah's immigration problems.

The commission began its public hearings on 14 January 2013. [2]

Members

The commission member [3] are as follows:

Terms of Reference

There are 8 TORs: [4]

a) Sabah citizens residing in the state, including those given blue ICs or citizenships through birth certificates (late registration);
b) foreign workers (including family members);
c) illegal immigrants (including family members); and
d) fugitives
and to study their impact on the number of those registered in the electoral roll;

Proceedings

Response

Former Sabah chief minister Harris Salleh testified in the inquiry that the final authority to grant citizenship to foreigners is with the federal government. He also denied the existence of Project IC. [5]

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad admitted that Filipino immigrants were granted citizenship in Sabah, but insists that everything was done legally. [6]

Former Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) deputy director Mohd Nasir Sugip told the commission that the former Sabah Election Commission director had ordered Sabah NRD to register 16,000 immigrants. He also added that the NRD and EC had collaborated to increase the number of Muslim voters in Sabah. [7]

Dissident blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin wrote in Malaysia Today that there is a plot by the Barisan Nasional government to increase the Muslim population in Sabah to retain power in the state. [8]

List of hearings sessions

The Royal Commission of Inquiry start its first hearing session began on 14 January 2013

DateTitlePublic hearing / Government Body

Conclusion

Report findings

The Royal Commission after going through a nine months of hearings and 211 witnesses, released a 366-page report. [9] [10] In the report several statements and recommendations were made: [11] [12]

Sabah RCI Roundtable

The Jeffrey Cheah Institute held a roundtable discussion on 17th Dec to discuss the RCI Report. Moderated by Prof James Chin, a well-known political scientist, two senior Sabah politicians took part. They were:

The webcast can be seen here

Related Research Articles

Demographics of Sabah

The 2015 Malaysian Census reported the population of Sabah at 3,543,500, being the third most populous state in Malaysia and have the highest non-citizens population at 870,400. However, as Malaysia is one of the least densely populated countries in Asia, Sabah is particularly sparsely populated with most of the population concentrated in the coastal areas since towns and urban centres have massively expanded. The statistics in 1970 reported the population of Sabah with only 653,600, with both the state and its neighbour of Sarawak has about the same number of foreign nationals. By 1980, the state population saw a sudden increase to over 1,011,000 following the influx of refugees who fleeing a conflict in the neighbouring southern Philippines. At the same time, Sabah economic booms in the primary sector also attracted large legal workers from both Indonesia and the Philippines. This increase to over 1,863,600 in 1991, 2,603,485 in 2000, and by 2010 turned into 3,117,405. Sabah has 900,000 registered migrant workers working in agriculture, plantation, construction, services and domestic workers. While the total number of illegal immigrants are predicted to be as more than one million due to the past controversial regularisation for political reasons, with most of them are believed to have been categorised as "other bumiputera" category group in the country statistics. Sabah also witnessed a great increase in the number of expatriates, with most of them comes from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Europe.

References

  1. "Najib announces setting up of RCI to probe issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah". Borneo Post Online. 2 June 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  2. "RCI on Sabah immigrant issue begins public hearings from Monday". The Star (Malaysia). 11 January 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
  3. "RCI on illegal immigrants". Borneo Post Online. 12 August 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  4. "IC-for-votes claim focus of Sabah RCI". The Malaysian Insider. 11 August 2012. Archived from the original on 18 August 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  5. "Ex-Sabah CM Harris denies 'Project IC'". The Malaysian Insider. 15 January 2013. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
  6. "RCI Sabah: Tun M Akui Kerajaan Beri Kerakyatan Sah" (in Malay). mStar Online. 17 January 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
  7. "EC ordered NRD to give ICs, change immigrants' names, RCI told". The Malaysian Insider. 16 January 2013. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
  8. "This is no conspiracy theory". Malaysia Today. 18 January 2013. Archived from the original on 21 January 2013. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  9. Melissa Chi; Julia Chan (3 December 2014). "'Corrupt officials' blamed for Sabah problems, but RCI says hands tied". The Malay Mail. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
  10. "Corrupt officials, syndicates behind Sabah's Project IC, no names revealed". The Malaysian Insider. 3 December 2014. Archived from the original on 14 December 2014. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
  11. Melissa Goh (3 December 2014). "Malaysia inquiry on Sabah illegal migrants fails on solutions". Channel News Asia. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
  12. "RCI moots 'permanent secretariat' to oversee all Sabah immigrant issues". The Malay Mail. 3 December 2014. Retrieved 4 December 2014.