Thursday, October 9, 2008

FRIDAY-10 OCTOBER 2008- NATIVES WITH CITIZENSHIP WOE TOLD TO CONTACT UPKO BUREAU

Natives with citizenship woe told to contact Upko Bureau


PENAMPANG:


Sabah natives who are facing citizenship problem are urged to contact United Pasok Momogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation (Upko) Citizenship and Security Bureau with their information. Upko President Tan Sri Bernard Dompok said he wants the cases to be documented by the Bureau so that he can bring them directly to the Federal Cabinet. “I feel that this is the only way to get things done,” he said, adding that he spoke at length about the problem at Cabinet on Wednesday. “The Cabinet had listened to it because I explained the predicament of all these citizenship applicants whose parents are Sabahans who left the colony at that time temporarily and came back to Sabah well before Malaysia Day,” he said. Dompok said the applicants would have become citizens by operational law but in this case some are still finding problems getting their citizenship. According to Dompok, there seem to be some administrative problem in National Registration Department (NRD) and the Department is asking for time to rectify it. “It was also agreed in Cabinet yesterday that the issues we bring up to the Ministry concerned have to be looked at urgently and that the relevant authorities would try to clear up all these cases,” he said. To the question why only now are these cases being unearthed, Dompok said that people in the past probably believe that things could not be done. “In fact I have told them that this should be done, to come forward with their problems but it seems that they have resigned to the fact that there is this problem that could not be solved. “But I think this can be solved and we must fmd the political will to resolve this. In fact all this talk about re-branding the Barisan Nasio (BN) and all the political parti within the coalition will come nothing if we don’t solve the bas problem faced by the people,” h said. Dompok said that these cases als involved emotional issues such a the feeling of being part of the nation. Dompok told The Borneo Post th after meeting with Damus Sakai, 42-year-old Lundayeh fro Tenom, a red Malaysian identity card holder whose application for citizenship has been rejected twice by the National Registration Department.