Former Sabah chief minister Harris Salleh has denied the existence of a clandestine immigration scheme to alter Sabah's demographics, better known as Project IC or Project M.

harris mohd salleh former sabah chief minister "As far as I am aware, there is no such thing as Project IC. If they (federal agencies) give identity cards, they may be in a hurry because they have to deal in the thousands, so they may speed up, said Harris (right) who was in power from 1976 to 1985.

"But as far as I know, officially or unofficially, there is no Project IC," he told the royal commission of inquiry on Sabah immigrants today.

He added that even if identity cards were given out speedily, this was done according to the provisions of the federal constitution.

When conducting officer Manoj Kurup asked wether he could read out some accusations in books and blogs accusing him of instructing immigrants to be given identity cards, an annoyed Harris snapped and replied that such questions would only waste the RCI’s time.

“No, I have never done anything illegal, all I do is legal... Why should I bother suing in court and waste money and the court’s time,” he said.

Harris said at most, the state government could only assist immigrants with their application such as filling in forms but ultimately, the power to grant citizenship lies with the federal government.

‘Tunku welcomed Muslim refugees’

In a written statement submitted to the RCI, Harris also blamed first premier Tunku Abdul Rahman for the federal government’s policy of allegedly giving preferential treatment to Muslim refugees.

“Tunku announced that Muslims refugees can stay in Malaysia, and non-Muslims in any case preferred either to go to Australia, Europe, or the USA (for resettlement),” he said, adding that this policy continues to be in force until today.

“Based on these policies and as claimed by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, it can be concluded that thousands of the refugees and Indonesians were accorded citizenship in accordance with the Malaysian constitution,” he said.

However, Harris denied a witness assertion to the RCI yesterday that there were explicit rules to only settle Muslim refugees in Sabah.

“We never categorised that they must be Muslims, there were also non-Muslims and they were treated the same way. What were were concerned about was to resettle them,” he said.

Harris led the Berjaya government in 1976 after ousting the Usno government, after which the Settlement Unit was formed to deal with the influx of Filipinos fleeing the conflict in Mindanao.

He said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had at that time approached the Sabah government to resettle the refugees with a grant of US$15 million.

This move, he said, not only allowed Sabah to deal with its refugee problem, but was also able to provide human resources at a time where the construction industry in Sabah was booming.

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