SABAH RCI National Registration Department (NRD) director-general Jariah Mohd Said has opined that the government should give amnesty to immigrants possessing illegal documents who come forward.

Jariah said that the government must also consider giving them citizenship proper if they identify themselves, as they have been staying here for a long time.

"What's important is that we must set our records (in NRD) right," she told the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) today.

“We must set a timeline. If in one or two years, they (immigrants) do not turn up, we must go find them, and strip them off their current status,” she said.

She said that those who have stayed in Sabah for a long time have also “contributed to the nation” and thus their proper citizenship must be given due consideration.

“Even if we don’t give citizenship to these people, our sovereignty will be threatened. Will their original country take them back? Where will they go?” she asked.

"They have been living here for a few generations already. What will happen to their children?” she said.

“We should give them amnesty.”

Jariah said that since 2005, NRD has been looking into a list that the department itself has identified as dubious IC holders in the state - which is listed by the department as P1, P2 and P3 (Issuance 1, 2, and 3).

113,000 individuals in combined list

There are about 113,000 individuals in this combined list, which is compiled periodically starting 1979 to 1994.

Jariah said that out of all the cases, NRD had only manage to solve 8,887 names on the dubious list out of the 113,000.

Out of this, 3,695 individuals were allowed to keep their ICs while the rest had theirs cancelled.

“We stopped meeting after November last year because the RCI was formed and I thought the RCI was going to uncover and determine these things further,” she said.

“But I see the trend where more and more are coming forward (to verify),” she added.

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