Muhyiddin: Special task force to solve citizenship issues, special committee no longer needed

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Muhyiddin (second row, center) takes one for the album with those who received their letters and certificates of confirmation as Malaysian citizens. — Photo by Muhammad Rais Sanusi.

KUCHING: Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has clarified that his ministry will continue to give priority to citizenship issues, including those under Article 15A of the Federal Constitution.

Despite the Sarawak Special Committee on Citizenship being discontinued, Muhyiddin said that the Home Ministry had made the decision to form a special task force at the federal level to solve citizenship issues.

“This would include cases coming from Sarawak. The task force is given a responsibility to expedite and solve all matters relating to citizenship application, and we believe that the bulk of the cases can be settled by the end of the year,” Muhyiddin said when met by reporters after a citizenship confirmation presentation ceremony and walkabout at UTC Kuching here earlier.

He added that this was why the federal government felt that there was no need to continue with the special committee on the issue.

“Additionally, the administrative matters of registering, applying and processing are under the federal government’s jurisdiction, not the state, so it becomes a federal matter.

“Other states don’t have this committee — Sarawak only had it because they had requested it from the previous Barisan Nasional but now I feel that this is a federal responsibility so let the federal department and ministry handle it,” Muhyiddin stated.

He also expressed his hope that the state government could assist and cooperate with the federal government on this matter.

On July 22, the Home Ministry’s secretary-general Datuk Seri Alwi Ibrahim had sent a letter to Minister of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah stating the decision to discontinue the committee.

In the letter, Alwi had also mentioned that all cases in Sarawak on the subject matter must be referred to or re-submitted to the Home Ministry for coordination purposes.

Fatimah reportedly could not hide her disappointment over the decision to discontinue the committee, which had been set up in October 2016 with the green light from then-Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.