Apart from being concerned about the lager numbers of foreigners present in Sabah, the locals are also perplexed as to how about a million of them possess original Malaysian identity cards.

In 1970, seven years after becoming a part of Malaysia, Sabah's population was at 653,000. A decade later, it increased by 30 percent to 955,712.

It nearly doubled in 1991 to 1.7 million, including 423,000 non-Malaysians, and increased to 2.6 million (revised for some reasons downwards from 3.1 million), including 615,000 non-Malaysians, in 2000.

Earlier this week, a leading Sabah-based non-government organisation (NGO) activist Patrick Sindu revealed that a group of NGOs and concerned individuals were launching a signature campaign to call on the federal government to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry to probe the population boom in the state.

Sindu is also the Consumer Association of Sabah and Labuan president.

According to another prominent local activist and author Joshua Kong, the official population statistics include a growing number of what he described as 'document-less' immigrants from neighbouring countries.

He said a small portion of the population is made up of foreign workers with work permits such as domestic maids, plantation workers and contract professionals and the spouses of locals since 1991.

'Overnight bumiputeras'

"I am not so concerned about illegal immigrants as the figures vary. They obtain fake ICs to deceive others for a limited time only but those Epic (Extra people with identity cards) are the ones that can destroy Sabah," he said.

The irony, he added, is that with so many dubious citizens, there is still a demand for more illegal immigrants for jobs here.

"The reason for this is that these people have become Bumiputeras overnight and demand all the privileges and so they do not work in the plantations," he explained.

The immigrants are mostly from neighbouring Philippines and Indonesia.

Kong also wondered how long could Sabah tolerate the excessive population growth when its economic indicators lay at the bottom.

Repatriate them

Speaking at a recent conference on the issue of illegal immigrants, he said that repatriation was the only answer.

Kong and other NGO leaders, including Sindu, estimate that there are about two million illegal immigrants, including those with genuine ICs, in Sabah at present.

In mid-2004, there were 723,000 foreigners in Sabah, mostly illegal or document-less immigrants.

According to the Department of Statistics Department, the state's population in mid 2004 was 2.994 million.

Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman had recently asked the department to come up with a response after the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) queried the state government on the population explosion.

The chief minister also vowed to take tough action against the illegal immigrants, but Kong noted that going by the state government's calculation, the process "would take decades since only 236,000 were deported over the last 10 years".

He also derided Musa Aman for saying that there were only about 100,000 illegal immigrants in Sabah, claiming that this was 'laughable and an insult to all'.

Kong stressed that if a Royal Commission of Inquiry is not set up, Sabah would be swarmed by illegals with the locals becoming 'refugees' in their own land.

Who and why?

The activist claimed that between 250,000 and 400,000 genuine identity cards had been issued officially since the 1970s when Mustapha Harun was chief minister.

"If you multiply that with one or two additions for every two illegals (husband andwife ), the figure can exceed one million.

"When we talk of a period of three decades, the figure can touch two million as more than 800,000 Malaysians residing in Sabah have also left the state from 1995-2004 according to immigration records," he said.

Kong felt the government should not delay the setting up of the commission which he himself had first suggested way back in 1987.

Among others, he said, the commission should be tasked to investigate why so many ICs were issued, who authorised it and under what law.