Musa Sulaiman
KOTA KINABALU: There were plans to increase the immigration counters at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) to cater for the huge number of tourists arriving in the country, said Sabah Immigration Department director Musa Sulaiman.
Musa said there were 10 immigration counters currently at KKIA and during peak hours, the waiting hall would be packed with tourists whose flights normally arrived around the same time or within a couple of hours during the night.
He said to solve such a problem, the Immigration Department and Malaysia Airports Berhad (MAB) had agreed to increase more immigration counters by end of this year, he said.
“First of all, I would like to thank YB Christina Liew (Deputy Chief Minister cum State Tourism, Culture and Environment) for her concerns and raising up this issue.
“I would like to state here that both the Immigration Department and MAB have been looking into this problem for a while now and plans have been made to have more counters in operation, especially during peak hours.
“We realise the long queues our tourists have to go through, just to get their clearance, and that is why we have plans to increase more counters by this year,” he said without giving an actual figures.
Musa also acknowledged the shortage of manpower at KKIA and the shortfall would also be resolved by this year, he said to The Borneo Post when replying to a comment made by Liew on Monday, when the later urged both the Immigration Department and MAB to buck up following complaints about the services at KKIA.
Liew said she had received complaints about dirty toilets at the airport and the long queues at the immigration counters.
She said the MAB should ensure the toilets at the airport were clean and more officers on duty at the Immigration Department when foreign flights from China and South Korea arrived at the airport.