State cops send SOS for more personnel to federal govt
KUCHING: Sarawak police have sent an urgent request to the federal government to beef up the number of personnel patrolling the state’s 2,400km border lines.
Deputy police chief Datuk Dr Chai Khin Chung revealed that the continuous commitment of sending at least 500 personnel from the state General Operations Force (GOF) to the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) would be an additional strain on manpower.
“We have made the necessary request to the central agency in Bukit Aman for our needs and now we hope that the federal government would approve the number of personnel that we need. However, I want to assure the public that security along our borders is under control,” Chai told The Borneo Post yesterday.
He said for the long term, however, Sarawak is in need of more police personnel but declined to give an exact number for security reasons.
On allegations that GOF personnel stationed at Batu Kawah had not been fully utilised and deployed, Chai said: “We have been deploying them even to Esscom and they are also assisting in multitasking work of the police in ensuring law and order in the state. So it’s not true that they have been left in the ‘cold storage’.”
Meanwhile, state Immigration Department director Datu Robert Lian urged the Consulate-General of Indonesia here to collaborate with the relevant authorities in Sarawak to weed out illegal immigrants.
“We hope that they would also assist us in finding where their people are employed here. There’s no point of just telling the media how many people from your country have become illegal immigrants here alone,” he said when contacted.
He added that his department was also facing a shortage of enforcement personnel to handle illegal immigrants and, like the state police, had also sought federal assistance to increase its numbers.
Indonesian Consul-General in Kuching Jahar Gultom recently revealed that at least 400,000 Indonesians are believed to be working in Sarawak, but only some 110,000 were documented by his office.
Deputy Home Minister Dato Sri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said he is aware of the constraints faced by both the police and Immigration Department in the state.
“In fact the federal government is looking at the possibility of getting two more brigades of GOF to be deployed in Sarawak. But we ourselves are also facing the constraints as we are facing a shortage of police personnel nationwide due to various reasons such as retirement, resignations and dismissals; numbering some 1,800 annually.
“So we will be recruiting some 6,000 policemen annually, especially to fill the posts of GOF and to be posted to Sarawak and Sabah,” he said, adding that once Sabah has enough police personnel, Sarawak would no longer need to send its GOF personnel there.
He said the federal government has approved one GOF brigade to be stationed at Samalaju in Bintulu.
“Hopefully we will be able to get another brigade to be stationed in Sarawak soon as it is the biggest state and has the longest border lines,” he stressed.
Wan Junaidi said he has also requested for seven more immigration border posts along the Sarawak-Kalimantan border.
“Currently we have seven immigrations posts so we hope to have 14 in future so that our border will not be easily penetrated by illegal immigrants. Certainly we do not want another Lahad Datu incident to happen here in Sarawak,” he reiterated.