Datu Akjan
KOTA KINABALU: Malaysian Islamic Propagation and Welfare Organisation (Pekida) Sabah fully supports the State Government’s proposal to issue special passes for foreign workers in the state.
However, priority must first be given to the ‘stateless people’ as the status of their citizenship has been a perennial issue that has been besieging the state for more than four decades.
Its president Dr Datu Akjan Datu Ali Muhammad described the proposal as a ‘win-win situation’ as it could open allow the stateless people to be legally employed, while at the same time solving the labour shortage issue.
“While we welcome and fully support the State Government’s ongoing plan and effort to address the severe shortage of palm oil workers in plantations, we are of the opinion that priority should be given to stateless people when it comes to job recruitment,” Datu Akjan told reporters during press conference today.
Datu Akjan estimated that there currently more than 100, 000 ‘stateless people’ in Sabah and some of them are in their mid 40s.