On Saturday, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak finally announced that the Cabinet at its Friday meeting on November 14, 2014 decided that the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into illegal immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) will be made public by the beginning of next month and that a special committee headed by the Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan would be formed to look into the findings and compile recommendations.
Although Najib’s announcement was hailed by Barisan Nasional leaders in Sabah, the formation of the Pairin special committee on RCIIIS is only the latest chapter in the 40-year Great Betrayal of Sabahans as it is proof of the continued lack of political will to resolve the long-stand problem with the solution of a problem which had spanned over two generations completely out of sight!
At the opening of the 29th PBS congress in Kota Kinabalu yesterday, Joseph Pairin Kitingan said the people have high hopes for the Federal Government to put to rest the long-standing issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah and many were looking forward to learn about the findings by the RCIIIS and the solutions to the issue.
He said: “Effective implementation is needed, including stern enforcement. It also requires a strong political will. We need to eradicate the perception among illegals that they have the right to encroach on Sabah.”
Fat hopes indeed, as such political will are completely absent, or it would not have taken some seven months before publication of the Report of the RCIIIS.
Dare Pairin state when he expects the long-standing problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah to be resolved? In 2015, 2016, 2017, before or after the 14th General Elections, 2018, 2019 or even 2020?
The Report of the RCIIIS was submitted to the Federal Government on May 14, and the Cabinet decided exactly six months later on Nov. 14 to make public the Report the following month.
Can the Prime Minister explain what the Cabinet or the Federal Government did in the six months from May 14 to Nov. 14 with regard to the Report of the RCIIIS?
Did the Cabinet or Federal Government just sit on the Report doing nothing, hoping that everybody would forget about it, but when they found that the people of Sabah, in particular Pakatan Rakyat State Assembly representatives and MPs, both from Sabah and Malaysia, continue to demand publication of the Report of the RCIIIS, they have no choice after a six-month procrastination but to promise to make it public?
Will the Pairin special Committee on the Report of the RCIIIS take some more months and years before submitting its recommendations, which will take some more months and years before they are made public, to be followed by new combinations and permutations of the art of procrastination – dragging a 40-year Great Betrayal of Sabah into a 50-year Great Betrayal of Sabah?
Pairin said his party had called for the formation of the RCI since it was established in 1985.
The very fact that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government is not prepared to immediately make public the Report of the RCIIIS when it was received on May 14, and to announce acceptance of its recommendations with the formation of an implementation committee, is the most potent proof that the Barisan Nasional, whether at the Federal or Sabah state level, continues to be afflicted by a total absence of political will to resolve the long-standing issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah which have made true Sabahans aliens in the Land Below the Wind.
It is sad but true that the end game to the 40-year Great Betrayal of Sabah is not yet in sight.