Maximus (second from left) handing over a memento to Datuk Seri Panglima Radin Malleh to thank for his service. Radin has decided not to retain or contest for any party position.
KOTA KINABALU (June 30): Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) is continuing its efforts to rid Sabah of illegal immigrants (PTI).
Its president, Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Maximus Ongkili, said that the efforts to clean the state of PTI had been ongoing and thanked the support of friends in Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) in the effort.
“The time has come for us in GRS to be united to address the flooding of PTIs in Sabah. We have to come on a common front on this issue. If we were divided before, and sorry to say, while under Barisan Nasional, BN has a very poor record on sorting out the PTI issue in Sabah,” he said.
“There was no concrete action from BN to address this problem and since the set up of PBS in 1985, we also have no record that we can be proud of in relation to this issue. The BN government failed to address the PTI problem in Sabah. It was as if they did not care about our difficulties facing the various problems linked to PTI,” he said.
Maximus also said that some parties misused the presence of the PTI for their own political gain.
“I don’t have to say the name of the party in BN which has used the ‘PTI service’, I think we are all aware of this issue. The involvement of the party to gain votes from PTI is proven in the Royal Commission of Inquiry on PTIs in Sabah. They abused their powers and turned to the illegal immigrants for support just because they did not want PBS to be the government in Sabah,” he said at the PBS annual delegates conferences on Thursday.
He alleged that they also misused the power to give identification cards to PTIs to ease the group to vote for the party in the state and general elections.
“The matter has resulted in the pollution of the electoral list in Sabah. The electoral list must be cleaned as fast as possible so that only the true Sabahans are given the mandate to decide the leaders they choose. All the dirty tactics are part of the effort of the party to eradicate PBS existence, that cannot be denied. But we have not budged. We are still here and will remain to be here and become one of the major powers in GRS,” he said.