KOTA KINABALU: The National Registration Department (JPN) today denied having issued identity cards to foreigners in the state under a project known as ‘Projek Mahathir’ (Mahathir Project).
Its director-general, Datuk Jariah Mohd Said, told the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants in Sabah that the allegations contained in a book written by MD Mutalib was not true.
“The statements are not true. No identity cards are issued under ‘Projek Mahathir’, said the 208th witness when questioned by conducting officer Manoj Kurup.
Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is scheduled to testify today.
Questioned whether she knew about the “Project IC” (IC Project), Jariah, who was appointed JPN director-general in June 2011, said she had heard about it.
She said that based on JPN statistics until Aug 31 this year, a total of 68,703 legal immigrants in the state had been given Malaysian citizenship.
Referring to the book, which stated that 750,000 of the 1.75 million foreigners in the state had forged identity card, Jariah said JPN did not issue forged identity cards.
She said applications for the identity card had to be based on provisions in the Federal Constitution, where those found to have provided false information on themselves for the purpose would be investigated.
“Recently, there was an arrest by the police in Sabah. The police have opened a file on a JPN officer and the officer concerned has been suspended from work,” she added.
She said the use of the sworn declaration as substitution for birth certificates for identity card applications in Sabah was valid, but it had been abolished in 1987.
On the testimony by witnesses, comprising foreigners, that they had lied on the information about their place of birth by stating that they were born in Sabah in their application for the identity cards, Jariah suggested that they went to JPN to rectify the matter.
The hearing before a panel of five commission members, chaired by former Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Steve Shim Lip Kiong, continues today. — Bernama