KUALA LUMPUR: Angry over repeated delays in making public the report of an inquiry into illegal immigrants in Sabah, Bersih 2.0 is giving Putrajaya an ultimatum to table the report by Monday, failing which they will seek a meeting with the prime minister. The electoral reform group wants the Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Illegal Immigrants to be tabled in Parliament, and for the prime minister to explain why lawmakers are not being allowed to debate and discuss it.

Bersih chair Maria Chin Abdullah said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has the moral obligation to make the report public. “We will not accept any more delays since this issue has been waiting resolution as far back as the Likas petition in 1999.”

The Likas petition refers to a High Court case in which a Filipino named Fuad Ari from Tawi-Tawi island had testified that he had obtained his identification card under a scheme known as “Projek IC”.

Maria said the report should be tabled, even if it means extending the current Parliament sitting which is due to end on Nov 27. Najib was reported as saying earlier this week  the RCI report would be made public  in  only December, but Bersih wants it to be released in Parliament where MPs can debate it.

“We are not convinced by the prime minister’s last-minute attempted assurance that the report will be made public next month. For one, there is scant detail about how it will be done, which leads us to see it as a red herring to subvert pressure on the original assurance,” Maria said yesterday.

The report should be debated in Parliament, she added, because it “pertains to the very question of which party is truly the people’s choice to be government”.

The RCI on illegal immigrants in Sabah was held last year to probe claims that migrants were being given citizenship in exchange for votes for Barisan Nasional, the ruling party. Its report was submitted to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and Najib about six months ago. Some 200 witnesses were called to testify, including former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was alleged to be behind “Projek IC”.

Some government officers have been detained under the now-repealed Internal Security Act for their alleged role in issuing Malaysian identity cards to illegal immigrants, but Bersih said that the former detention-without-trial law was being used to “purposely prevent the truth from being revealed in open court”.

“Projek IC” has also been blamed for Sabah’s rapid population boom in a matter of years, a sore point with many locals and opposition political parties there.

Bersih said the wrongs committed against the people of Sabah must be corrected, beginning with making the RCI report public.

The electoral reform group wants the government to revamp the Sabah electoral roll, including deregistering those who obtained identity cards unlawfully.  It also wants Sabah to be exempted from the Election Commission’s impending redelineation exercise and from any increase in the number of constituencies, which it said would worsen electoral fraud. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 21, 2014.