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Sabah to proceed with the registration of illegals

Published on 13 July 2011, Wednesday (Daily Express)

Kota Kinabalu: Sabah will proceed with implementation of its 5P amnesty package on July 18, although the registration of illegal foreign workers nationwide - ahead of an amnesty exercise - has been shelved indefinitely.

"We will continue with it as I have announced earlier," State Secretary Datuk Sukarti Wakiman said, after he attended the Chief Minister's Department and Finance Ministry monthly gathering at the State Assembly building, Tuesday.

He was referring to his announcement last week that the State's 5P (registration, amnesty, monitoring, enforcement and deportation) amnesty package would be carried out.

He had said that Sabah would only apply five of the 6Ps in the amnesty package with no regularisation exercise since these have been done four times previously - in 1997,1998, 2008 and 2009.

The move is also to prevent any more illegals entering the State to take advantage of the documentation process, apart from preventing foreign workers from changing their identities.

There are foreign workers who deliberately change their identities in their passports that they acquired in Sabah, said Sukarti.

State Immigration Department Director Mohammad Mentek had also said that the focus of the amnesty programme this time was to get the illegals properly registered.

There are nine locations at which they could register - in Kudat community hall, Menggatal community hall, Ranau community hall, Keningau community hall, Sipitang community hall, Tawau community hall, Lahad Datu community hall and art gallery in Semporna.

Registration is free during the two-week exercise and the authorities won't take any action such as arresting the illegals. They want them to go for the registration so that "we can obtain data from them including biometric data and their mug shot."

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein, in announcing the postponement earlier, said the decision was due to several technical issues and national security matters that need to be sorted out first.

The Federal Government has now decided to postpone it till Aug 1.

The introduction of the biometric system at 67 immigration entry points nationwide recently saw minor glitches that marred the whole exercise.

He also did not fix a time frame as to when the amnesty would be implemented.

The said nationwide registration exercise, aimed at encouraging an estimated two million illegal workers to register by being fingerprinted via a biometric system, was supposed to have started Monday.

It was meant to grant them amnesty so that they could work legally or leave the country without being caught and jailed.




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