Several thousand applicants for Malaysian personal documents in Sabah and Sarawak will know their fate soon when a newly set up special unit in the National Registration Department (NRD) swings into action in East Malaysia within the coming days.

The regular wheels of bureaucracy have been grinding their way too slowly and painfully for these people since Sabah entered into an enlarged federation on Sept 16 1963, along with Singapore, Malaya and neighbouring Sarawak.

The special unit was announced by Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar on Tuesday in Putrajaya after the state NRD in Sabah came under public spotlight in recent weeks for perceived "callousness, incompetence, lack of transparency and graft (allegedly) involving the issuance of MyKads to illegal immigrants who are now on the electoral rolls".

Sabah has a long waiting list of 30,000 applicants for Malaysian citizenship certificates alone, according to figures recently released by the state NRD, to explain why many Sabahans are not Malaysians.

In Sarawak, the special unit would not have an apparent free hand as in Sabah, and would be subject to a newly created special task force set up by the state government within the ministry for social development and urbanisation, according to its minister, William Mawan Ikom.

"The special task force would comprise various government departments and agencies related to the issuance of identification documents," said Mawan. "The problem is quite serious now as it affects the livelihood and future of people, if they are stateless, for example."

The estimates that the Sarawak NRD has to work with are not known but according to Mawan, the special unit would be asked to focus its initial efforts on 10,000 ‘stateless’ or ‘undetermined’ people in selected areas in the interior regions of the state.

The special unit would have to work with the Sarawak government’s special task force on Malaysian personal identification documents. Telang Usan, Ba Kelalan, Kapit, Belaga, Engkili, Lundu and Balai Ringin would be among the first areas to be covered.

Elsewhere in Sarawak, the state NRD figures cited by Mawan show:

1. difficulty in delivering identification documents (Malaysian) to 1, 274 owners;

2. failure to register identification documents of 3, 887 people due to technical reasons; and

3. 4,800 students without personal documents in Sarawak.

Besides, the Indonesian consulate in Kuching has lost track of an estimated 4,000 Indonesian Chinese who fled the anti-communist uprising in Kalimantan, Indonesia, after the downfall of the late dictator Sukarno in the late ‘60s.

Reviving the green card system

These Indonesians were given green identity cards indicating temporary residence status and it is not known what has became of them and their children. Many are reported to be still living in Sarawak.

The NRD abandoned the green card system several years ago but the system will now be revived, according to Syed Hamid’s statement in Kota Kinabalu earlier this month, "promising an identity for everyone in this country but not necessarily a Malaysian identity".

In Kota Kinabalu, the citizenship and security bureaus of various political parties across both sides of the divide have offered to work with the NRD’s special unit and share what information they have gathered.

State assistant minister Donald Peter Mojuntin, who heads UPKO’s citizenship and security bureau, for one, disclosed that his bureau "has been continuously receiving requests for assistance from all over Sabah, with their respective applications and problems related to the NRD".

"We met the new state NRD director recently and he has agreed to have a round table discussion with the bureau in the near future," said Mojuntin. "When a file reaches NRD in Putrajaya, how many times does it have to be looked at before they are sure the application is genuine?

"The perception is that it is easier for illegal immigrants and IMM13 (refugee status) holders to obtain legal documents by illegitimate means than it is for genuine applicants who follow the legal process. Perhaps, the special unit can also address this issue."

PKR’s public complaints bureau in Sabah wants to work together with the special unit to conduct seminars on how the latter should go about its work. "This is the most effective way of getting the targeted applicants in their efforts to clear their backlogged applications," said Christina Liew who heads the bureau.

"People can’t understand why it should take 20 to 30 years for the issuance of citizenship certificates."

Former PBS Supreme Council member, Dr Chong Eng Leong, who resigned from the party over the identity cards issue after several court battles, wants the state NRD to follow the rules and regulations when it entertains late registration of birth applications.

"The state NRD should have such applications scrutinised in court before a first class magistrate as provided by the law," said Chong, who was instrumental in denying SAPP president, Yong Teck Lee, the Likas seat after a court ruled that the electoral rolls (in Likas) were riddled with names of illegal immigrants in possession of Malaysian documents.

The NRD has since announced, amidst widespread protests and condemnations, that it would no longer entertain any late registration of birth applications in Sabah.

SAPP’s Tawau MP, Chua Soon Bui, has compiled a list of people who are eligible for Malaysian personal identification documents and been denied and another list of people who are not eligible but issued with Malaysian papers. She is hoping to share the list with the special unit.