Tun Dr Mahathir MOhamad says Identitiy Cards in Sabah handed out legally to foreigners

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad adalah PM Malaysia sejak 1981 hingga 2003

Prosiding suruhanjaya siasatan diraja RCI mengenai kebanjiran pendatang asing di Sabah yang bermula sejak 14 Januari 2013 lalu digemparkan dengan keterangan beberapa bekas kakitangan dan pegawai kanan Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara, JPN bahawa mereka diarah memproses permohonan kad pengenalan kepada rakyat asing. Kesemua bekas kakitangan dan pegawai JPN itu telah disumbat ke dalam tahanan di Kamunting di bawah akta keselamatan dalam negeri, I-S-A sebelum ini.

Dan hari ini akhbar melaporkan bekas Perdana Menteri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad berkata kad pengenlan itu diberikan kepada mereka yang memenuhi kriteria ditetapkan.

Ini laporan The Star online hari ini 17 Januari 2013 :

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad did not deny that Government officials gave foreigners in Sabah identity cards before the 1994 state elections.

However, he said that these cards were handed out legally, adding that he did not know if former Deputy Home Affairs Minister Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayub had ordered them to be issued on purpose ahead of state elections.

"If he did it before the state elections, that is either coincidental or deliberate, I wouldn't know, but it is within the law," he said at a press conference.

"That it happened before the state elections is not against the law," said Dr Mahathir who was also the country's Home Affairs Minister from 1986 to 1999.

He added that foreigners were legally given citizenships as long as they fulfilled certain criteria.

He was responding to news reports that a former Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) official told a Royal Commission of Inquiry that Megat Junid ordered temporary identification receipts of lost or damaged ICs to be given to foreigners.

This was supposedly done two weeks before the 1994 state elections which Parti Bersatu Sabah barely won with 25 out of 48 state assembly seats.

These foreigners were alleged to have been added to parliamentary constituencies that would have been difficult for Barisan Nasional to contest in.

It was also reported that a special NRD unit formed in the 90s had issued over 100,000 blue ICs and 200,000 birth certificates to immigrants.

It was claimed that both the NRD and the Election Commission (EC) worked together to increase the number of Muslim voters in Sabah in 1992 and 1993.