Madius during his Chinese New Year 2020 Walkabout.
TUARAN: The current government intention of introducing the Sabah Temporary Pass (Pas Sementara Sabah or PSS) is noble, but the sentiments of the majority of the people are against it, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Wilfred Madius Tangau.
The Minister of Trade and Industry said this is understandable considering what Sabah has experienced and gone through the last five decades or so.
“Today, we are living with the consequences of the actions and decisions made by leaders especially those unscrupulous characters of the past.
“Now we are seeing and hearing the rising sentiments in opposing the government proposal of introducing PSS.
“To me, and Upko, it is really a question of trusting the system and the integrity of the mechanism that is being introduced and relied on by the government,” he said when asked by the media during his Chinese New Year 2020 Walkabout here yesterday.
Madius, who is also Upko President, some quarters also feel that the government is not dealing with the real issue at hand.
“You may have the best of proposal but if you don’t have the trust and support of the people, it will still end up as a failure.”
As leaders in the current government, he said it is also his responsibility to ensure the people not only support but trust the authority.
He said one of the ways that they in Upko believe that needed to be done is to show the government’s seriousness in resolving the issues of sending back the refugees to their country of origin.
“If their country of origin refuses to accept them, then other possibilities such as sending the refugees to a third country should be considered and look into. These are the kind of issues that the people want to be addressed and paid attention to,” he said.
However, Madius pointed out that the enforcement must be stricter and the question on the legality of the two documents such as Kad Burung-burung and sijil bancian must be finally addressed.
He said even though it has always been the position of the enforcement agency over the years of not arresting the holders of Kad Burung-burung and sijil bancian, such positions must now be reconsidered.
“And, equally important is for the government to really find a comprehensible solution to the illegal immigrants presence in Sabah.
“Even though we have all the laws in dealing with illegal immigrants but we have yet to find a real solution of stopping and preventing them from continuosly penetrating our boarders,” he stressed.
Madius said these are the urgent issues that the people of Sabah really want to be addressed and resolved comprehensively by the government.
“We have to concur that the people do not feel the proposal of introducing PSS will tackle comprehensively the two major issues I mentioned earlier.
“Upko will propose as soon as possible to the government not to proceed with the introduction of the PSS,” he said.
Instead, he added, the government must concentrate to find a solution to deport the refugees home to their country; and also to come up with a strict mechanism of preventing illegal immigrants from penetrating our boarders.
Madius said Upko had always been consistent that they want to rid Sabah of foreign illegal immigrant issue.
He said a serious problem that Sabah continues to face is the existence of illegal immigrants possessing identification card.
Some of them have already been registered in the system and had even voted in several general elections as disclosed in the 2013 Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI), he said.
“That is why Upko has always been consistent to demand to recall Malaysian indentity cards issued to Sabahans, subject them to strict scrutiny by stakeholders and reissue only to real Sabahans.”
He said this is possible as Malaysians had undergone before the process of surrendering and changing our old identification cards to a much sophisticated ones before. “It is doable and this is the kind of solution that the people expect to be done.”