KUCHING: A committee to specifically look into the issue of stateless persons aged 21 years and below will be formed and their members’ names submitted to the state cabinet for endorsement.
Minister of Welfare, Women and Community Wellbeing Datuk Fatimah Abdullah, said the committee’s formation was agreed upon during her meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi at Putra Jaya on Aug 16.
Without disclosing the names of the committee members, Fatimah said the committee would only facilitate the submission of “genuine” stateless cases (names) to the National Registration Department (JPN), that will then submit them to the Home Ministry for approval from Zahid as the Home Minister, who has the sole right to decide on them.
“During the meeting with Zahid on Aug 16, we brought up the issue of stateless children (in Sarawak) and the need to form a committee to address the problem, which he agreed to.
“So today (yesterday), we paid a courtesy call on Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem to inform him on the formation of the committee to look at the issue,” Fatimah told a press conference, without disclosing when the names of the committee’s line-up will be submitted.
She was responding to a question on matters discussed during her courtesy call on Adenan prior to the press conference on the state Poverty Eradication Focus Group.
Fatimah pointed out that there were genuine cases like the children in the Welfare Home at Mile 12, Kuching- Serian Road, who were abandoned by their parents and left without birth certificates and citizenship status.
She said such a situation would make it very difficult for them to enjoy all the facilities and benefits when attending school.
Fatimah added that the courtesy call on Adenan was to also inform him about the results of her meeting with Minister of Rural and Regional Development
Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Aug 15 in Putra Jaya on the dilapidated conditions of 132 Kemas preschools in the state, out of a total of 1,544.
According to her, the meeting with Sabri “sounds good” and she had relayed this sentiment to the CM.
“Our meeting with Ismail Sabri sounds good…but we just wait and see whether there will be allocation for Sarawak which we hope for to address the problem of dilapidated preschools when the Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak) tables a budget in the next Parliament sitting,” she said.