The National Registration Department (NRD) today told the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on immigrants in Sabah that only 66,682 foreigners in the state had been granted citizenship since the formation of Malaysia.

The figure, NRD citizenship division deputy director Nik Norashikin Nik Mansur said, was collated over a period of 50 years - from 1963 to October 2012.

Interestingly, the majority of these had their country of origin listed as Malaysia.

Asked why some 38,000 approved applicants claimed themselves as originating from Malaysia, Nik Norashikin explained that many of them had no other country of origin.

“For example, many of them are actually children of immigrants who were born in Malaysia, therefore they list themselves as originating from Malaysia,” she said.

13,000 of them from China

According to the statistics, the second largest group was immigrants from China at some 13,000 people, followed by Indonesians at some 7,000 and followed by those from the Philippines.

The actual number of different nationalities as well as the year-to-year breakdown were not made public. 

The statistics, at least on official record, appeared to refute allegations that the NRD arbitrarily granted citizenship to immigrants in Sabah in a bid to alter the state’s demographics.

steve shim chief justice of sabah and sarawakRCI chief Steve Shim (left) also noted that the data dated back a long time ago and may not provide an accurate picture of the situation in Sabah.

Nik Norashikin explained that any foreigner who applies for a blue identity card (citizen) through naturalisation would first be issued a citizenship certificate with a serial number.

“Based on this serial number, we can trace back the identity cards... It is not possible for a foreigner applying for citizenship to have a blue identity card without first getting a citizenship certificate,” she said.

However, she said for those who those who qualified for citizenship through the operation of law, not all of them are issued with such certificate prior to being granted a blue identity card.

The need to apply for citizenship by operation of law occurs when someone who is born in Malaysia and fulfills the condition to be automatically become a citizen but has yet to register as one. This method is described as citizenship through registration.

As such, conducting officer Manoj Kurup said that this made it difficult to trace whether someone had a fake IC by cross-referencing with the certificates.

'440k illegal immigrants deported’

Also testifying today was the Federal Special Task Force for Sabah and Labuan director Suhaimi Mohd Salleh, who explained that his agency was formed in 1989 to take over the handling of immigrants from the state government’s Settlement Unit.

“The task force was formed on the instructions of the National Security Council which was chaired by then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad,” Suhaimi said, adding that it still continued to work with the Settlement Unit in this area despite the ‘take-over’.

Suhaimi said a census conducted in the whole of Sabah in 1990 showed that there were a total of 300,363 illegal immigrants in the state.

Since then, he said, the task force has overseen the deportation of 446,173 illegal immigrants over the years.

For refugees, the task force’s 2007 census found a total of 59,237 of them residing in the 32 settlements that were set up in Sabah during the conflict in Mindanao. Another such settlement no longer exists as it was burnt down.

However, an update of the census done in 2011 covered only 16 villages, and the incomplete data indicated there were 38,158 refugees in those settlements.

A total of five witnesses took the stand today, after another two who testified yesterday.

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