Findings unpopular with the government may the reason the Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah report is not tabled at Parliament, a prominent witness at the RCI said.

"It was ready last December and it was presented to the Agong on May 21. Till today, no one knows what is in the report.

"Those who do, are not willing to say anything," said the witness who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

The terms of reference, he said, also raised questions over whether the government was not serious about resolving the issue.

 

"For example the eight terms of reference itself were very vague - each of them talked about investigating this and that but nothing to indicate that the culprit should be identified or be brought to book.

 

"The reluctance of the government to resolve this is because this touches on the agenda of the government itself for Sabah,” said the witness.

National issue

He said that the influx of illegal migrants into Sabah became a national issue when these migrants moved to the peninsula.

"I have nothing against the illegal immigrants, but why did the authorities allow this to continue from the 1960's, to 1970's and so on, to allow foreigners to come and be citizens and then be voters in Sabah. Many would by now have migrated to the peninsula.

"We are talking of security of the country,” said the witness.

During the RCI hearing, several witnesses testified that they had easily obtained Malaysian citizenship in just a few years of arriving in the country on condition that they register as voters.

Former Sabah National Registration Deprtment senior officer Yakup Damsah testified he was instructed to facilitate mass issuance of citizenships and did so at a Kuala Lumpur house used by an aide of then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad (above).

Mahathir and his aides named at the RCI have repeatedly denied any involvement of illegal issuance of citizenships.

They were acused of doing so to topple the rule of PBS, which was not part of BN at the time.

The witness said that the delay in publicising the report shows the government is not committed to apply the recommendations from the RCI panel.

Requests shot down

 

Civil groups such as Bersih too have called for the tabling of the report.

 

On Nov 14, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak ( right ) had said that the RCI report would be made public in early December this year.

 

Requests for it to be tabled in the Parliament were however shot down and the Dewan Rakyat session has ended for the year.

 

The RCI was set up in August 2012, with a six-member panel to investigate allegations of a citizenship-for-votes scheme in Sabah called ‘Project IC’ in the 1980s.

 

Chaired by former judge of Sabah and Sarawak Steve Shim, the RCI had "given hope" to Malaysians, especially Sabahans, that they will finally find out the truth about the covert operations by senior government officials illegally granting citizenship to immigrants in exchange for votes.

 

This was one of the longest of RCIs, with nearly 200 witnesses, which included former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed and his once deputy Anwar Ibrahim.

RCI report on 'Project IC' out on Wednesday

Previous reports :

Eight things to know about the Sabah RCI

Dr M claims to be in the dark about 'Project IC'

EC ordered us to issue ICs to immigrants, RCI told

'Instant citizens' may include subversives, RCI told