Anwar knew about illegals issue – Dompok
When we applied to join Barisan Nasional, the first person (I spoke to) was Anwar. One of the things I mentioned to him was that one of the issues we were looking to be addressed was the illegal immigration.
(Borneo Post) – UPKO president Tan Sri Bernard Dompok has taken former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to task for claiming that he did not have much information about the illegal immigrants issue during his tenure in office.
“It is very fresh in my mind in 1994 when we applied to join Barisan Nasional, the first person (I spoke to) was Anwar. One of the things I mentioned to him was that one of the issues we (then PDS) were looking to be addressed was the illegal immigration.
“He knows it and as parliament at that time was re-delineating electoral boundaries, Anwar said: ‘There is nothing much the federal government can do about this right now but we can see what can be done later on.’
“So he is aware that we are concerned about it. Maybe he has forgotten? It’s a long time already… people get older and they forget things,” Dompok said after officiating UPKO Beaufort’s triennial general meeting here on Friday.
The former federal minister said this when asked to comment on Anwar’s testimony at the Royal Commission of Inquiry on the presence of illegal immigrants in Sabah where the latter said: “As I said there was no credible evidence then … I have never seen documents of this nature at that time where information such as names and IC numbers were compiled together.”
Anwar told the Commission when the illegal immigrants issue was raised in parliament then, the standard replies from the Home Affairs Ministry would be: ‘Yes we are dealing with it’, ‘No, the allegations as to the huge number of illegal immigrants in Sabah are not true.’
When Commission chairman Tan Sri Steve Shim asked why the issue was never raised and discussed in Cabinet then, Anwar said: “Probably the Sabah ministers in the cabinet then were satisfied with the explanation of the Home Ministry.’
When asked for his opinion on Anwar’s statement that revoking the citizenship of those who had obtained it illegally would render them stateless and they would be stuck in Malaysia as their country of origin does not recognize and therefore will not accept them back, Dompok pointed out that what was important was to sort out the issue.
According to him the first on the list was to do the correct thing and that is to revoke anything that was issued fraudulently.
“The first thing we do is to do the correct thing, if somebody has been given something illegally then that has to be corrected first and then we move to the next step and figure out what do we do with them as there must be a solution for this.
“We must first ensure that the process of law is carried out properly and with full compliance of the existing laws. We are talking about integrity of the nation, of our laws. How can we have a country boasting of 50 years of nationhood not being able to address the issue of legality?” he stressed.
On Anwar’s claim that there was no credible evidence at that time on the issue for the federal government to initiate action, Dompok said: “That is why I said, let’s reset the policies. This is the time, the second half of the century and we must do so.
“This is the time we do it and this is what UPKO wants to do,” he stressed.
