My “grudge” again Joseph Pairin Kitingan is that he had not contributed to the resolution of the 45-year nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting rights although PBS returned to Barisan Nasional in 2002
I have no personal grudge against Joseph Pairin Kitingan. If any, my “grudge” against him is that he had not contributed to the resolution of the 45-year nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting rights although PBS returned to Barisan Nasional in 2002.
I would have thought that the resolution of the nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting rights would have been one of the main conditions for PBS’s return to the Barisan Nasional in 2002, but clearly it was not.
Can Joseph Pairin explain why?
Apart from being the Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah from 2004-2018, and being Chairman of the Working Committee of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah from 2015-2018, and Maximum Ongkili being a full-fledged Cabinet Minister from 2004-2018, and again from 2020 to now in both the Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri Cabinets, can Joseph Pairin explain how these developments contributed to the resolution of the 45-year nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah?
It is unfortunate that although Joseph Pairin has responded to my statement, he has signally failed to speak up as to what he had done since PBS’ return to the Barisan Nasional fold in 2002 to resolve the longstanding nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting rights.
He had conspicuously omitted to answer why the Royal Commission of Inquiry did not release the over 5,000 missing pages of report containing the memorandum, notes of evidence, the statutory declarations and exhibits which were submitted to the RCI were not released to the public on Dec. 3, 2014 and whether he and the Working Committee on the RCI Report had access to these 5,000 missing pages?
Joseph Pairin was only interested in taking pot-shots against me.
He evaded responsibility by claiming that his committee was only a technical committee and that the main and decision-making committee was under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister and the Sabah Chief Minister as the Deputy Chairman。
He said he conducted several meetings whilst receiving many proposals and suggestions via memorandum submitted by political parties organisations and individual and that he had submitted to “meritorious and worth considering” proposals to Main Committee.
The question is what were his proposals which were accepted and implemented and those which were rejected.
Could Joseph Pairin state them, or were all his proposals rejected?
Did Joseph Pairin or any of the PBS leaders supported me when I proposed that Joseph Pairin should be made Chairman for the implementation of the RCI Report Committee and not chairman of the review of the RCI Report Committee?
Let me remind Joseph Pairin what he said at the opening of the at the opening of the 29th PBS congress in Kota Kinabalu in November 2014, where he said that the people had high hopes for the Federal Government to put to rest the long-standing issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah and many were looking forward to learn about the findings by the Royal Commission of Inquiry and the solutions to the issue.
Joseph Pairin said: “Effective implementation is needed, including stern enforcement. It also requires a strong political will. We need to eradicate the perception among illegals that they have the right to encroach on Sabah.”
I still remember that in March 2015, I had invited Joseph Pairin to a forum in Kuala Lumpur to present his blueprint to resolve once and for all the Sabah Illegal Immigrants Nightmare – which by then was 10 months after the Report of the RCI had been submitted to the Yang di Pertuan Agong.
There was not only no reply from Joseph Pairin, not a single PBS leader supported me in my suggestion then that Joseph Pairin should be appointed Chairman of the Implementation Committee of the RCI Report and not Chairman of the Review Committee, nor was there any bleep of protest from any PBS leader when the Home Minister at the time, Zahid Hamidi, denied that there was ever a “Project IC”.
Where was the political will of the PBS leaders to resolve the nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting powers?
I remember when I visited Sabah in 1978, I had warned that Sabah faced three grave problems – the illegal immigrant problem which I had cited had reached 140,000, the crime situation and grave problem of corruption.
I said in 2015 that all these three problems had gone from bad to worse in the past four decades, with the illegal immigrant problem mushrooming to 1.5 million to 1.9 million making native Sabahans foreigners in their own land, while crime and corruption had worsened by leaps and bounds.
Next year, Sabah would be commemorating the 60th anniversary of the formation of Malaysia in 1963 but the nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting powers continues unresolved.
What is Joseph Pairin’s answer?
It is noteworthy that Joseph Pairin has nothing to say about the response of the former Prime Minister, Najib Razak, that he appointed the PBS President as the head of the management committee on foreign nationals to “secure borders, improve security and continue development efforts”.
Why is Joseph Pairin so coy?
While we wait for the full answer from Joseph Pairin, what is the answer from the other Pairin brother, Jeffrey Kitingan, who is now Deputy Chief Minister and head of Sabah special committee on undocumented foreign workers in Sabah in February this year?
Is Jeffrey’s appointment just another ruse in the merry-go-round on the nightmare of the illegal immigrants in Sabah with voting powers but with no solution?
Will Parliament when it meets on July 19 end all delay or procrastination to resolve the 45-year Nightmare of the people of Sabah?