Sabah immigration dishing-out Mykads?

It apparently takes only two hours to process a
new Mykad at the Immigration Department in Sabah's
Federal Administrative Complex, claims DAP.

By Queville To

KOTA KINABALU: Why is the Immigration Department in Sabah processing new Mykads and change of addresses? And when did the National Registration Department (NRD) appoint the Immigration Department to handle Mykads in Sabah?

Posing these question, Sabah DAP said it was tipped off by the members of the public that the process of changing to the new MyKads and address could be done at the Immigration Department in the Federal Administrative Complex here and that the procedure took only two hours.

“It is being done at the Immigration Department, which is suppose to only handle passport and work pass. Since when is the Immigration Department also doing the job of the National Registration Department?”  the party’s Tanjung Aru chief, David Chong Ket Sui asked.

Chong further claimed that he received information that most of those who were changing their MyKad and address were from Pulau Gaya, Telipok, Menggatal and Karambunai.

“Most of these people are from the Bajau Filipino community who are changing their address to Kota Kinabalu and Sembulan.

“We believe the move is facilitated by a group of people offering a sum of money ranging from RM100 to RM200 for them to change their address in their MyKad and in the process move their voting constituency,” said Chong in a statement issued today.

He claimed that all the people had to do was to select areas such as Karamunsing, Kampung Air and Sinsuran as their new address, even though they are not residing in these places.

Chong believes that there is a plan by some in the Barisan Nasional to change the demographics of the Chinese majority constituencies such as Kota Kinabalu.

“The BN is moving voters from other constituencies to the Chinese-majority constituency to change the demography and give them a chance to win in the coming election,” he claimed.

According to him, the BN needs at least 4,000 voters to offset the Chinese votes in Kota Kinabalu, which in the last general election had voted for a DAP candidate.

Meanwhile, Chong said since the process to change the address in the MyKad now was so easy and quick he urged those who had to take a long journey back to cast their vote to change their address in their identity card so that they could vote at the nearest polling centre, in the coming general election.

“Those who are always complaining about the trouble for them to go back to far away constituencies like Kudat or Sandakan should take the opportunity to change their address in their MyKad, which only takes up to two hours now,” he said.

Chong presumed that the change of voting constituency in the electoral roll is being done together with the change of address in the MyKad at the Immigration Department.

It had been reported that BN leaders from Sepanggar parliamentary constituency had also complaint about the “exercise” to move voters from the constituency to neighbouring Kota Kinabalu parliamentary constituency.