ALL eyes will be on MUDA president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and several others from MCA, MIC and other smaller parties in Sabah and Sarawak as the real acid test is whether they will vote for or against the proposed constitutional amendments relating to citizenship matters and delimitation of electorate exercise.
This question came from former Bangi MP Dr Ong Kian Meng immediately after MUDA decided to join the Opposition fold.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said his ministry has been working very hard to resolve the age-old problem involving the stateless people.
“We set a key performance indicator (KPI) target of 10,000 cases by end- 2023,” he told FocusM. “As of Aug 18, we have processed a total of 9,539 cases where a total of 6,855 (or 71.9%) have been granted citizenship.”
This is a record for the Madani government which have solved more cases than any of the number of cases solved by four previous home ministers put together.
Article 15A of the Federal Constitution empowers the minister to use his discretion to grant citizenship to a total of 3,427 cases this year involving young people below the age of 21.
A total of another 969 cases of stateless children have also received their citizenship based on Article 15(2) where the children have “at least one parent who is (or was at death) a Malaysian citizen.”
The bulk of the applications rejected so far is for citizenship by naturalisation or under article 19(1) of the federal constitution, with 2,138 cases rejected compared to 1,172 cases approved.
Constitutional amendments
In March this year, Saifuddin told The Star that his ministry has received a total of 150,000 cases, where the majority are stateless children and children born out of wedlock.
To solve their problem, the constitutional amendments had to be presented to the Conference of Malay Rulers for approval.
Now that the amendments will be tabled soon, once proposal for the amendments receives the aye from the two-thirds majority, many of these stateless children will be able to enjoy a new lease of life.
Born stateless, many of them have been deprived of the privileges accorded to citizens which include access to travel documents, banking facilities and free medical treatment at a public hospitals.
Earlier, Saifuddin also revealed that the ministry targeted to process 948 citizenship applications for communities living in the interiors and borders in Sarawak by June this year.
“We have since set up a special team to help process the applications,” he added. – Sept 12, 2023
Main pic credit: Borneo Post
