There are three unfinished business which the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should present to Parliament before it adjourns next Thursday until March next year.
The first is the Report of the Royal Commission of Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS), which is meant to end once-and-for-all the 40-year problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah which had multiplied 15 to 19 times in four decades from 100,000 in the seventies to 1.5 million to 1.9 million at present.
If the Report of the RCIIIS, which was presented to the Federal Government on May 14, is not presented to Parliament next week for a full parliamentary debate, it could only mean one thing – that there is complete absence of political will to resolve the long-standing problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah and the establishment of the Royal Commission of Inquiry was just a Barisan Nasional electoral ruse for the 13th General Election in May 2013 to secure votes for BN from the people of Sabah, and for which it succeeded.
Furthermore, the establishment of the Joseph Pairin Kitingan Review Committee for the RCIIIS Report announced by Najib in Kota Kinabalu last week is just the latest “merry-go-round” sleight-of-hand to kick the problem of illegal immigrants of Sabah into a distant and indefinite future, while the problem snowballs to pass the two million mark for illegal immigrants in Sabah – reducing native Sabahans to a minority and foreigner status in their own land!
Secondly, Najib should table the White Paper on the Islamic State in the coming week, as the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had told Parliament in a written reply to the DAP MP for Kampar, Dr. Ko Chung Sen last month that the White Paper on Malaysians involved in terrorist activities such as the Islamic State was being prepared.
Zahid had said that since December 2001, 167 Malaysians had been involved in militancy overseas, including 39 who are fighting for the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.
The White Paper on Islamic State had acquired greater poignancy and urgency with two latest developments:
- Malaysia shooting up to the Top 50 countries in the Global Terrorism Index 2014, when we should be one of the 40 countries in the world with no terrorism problems; and
- The arrest of a man and two women by the police counter-terrorism division on Saturday for alleged involvement with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).
It has been reported that there were 45 Malaysians in Syria and 15 in Iraq fighting for ISIS; that at least five Malaysians have been killed in action in Syria and that at least five ISIS militants had returned to Malaysia.
Between January and June this year, police arrested 23 people in various parts of Malaysia over alleged links to the terror group.
The tabling of the White Paper on Islamic State becomes even more imperative following the statement by the Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar in Parliament that Malaysian Isis fighters were returning to spread militant ideology in the country.
Thirdly, Najib should make a Ministerial statement on the roiling multi-billion ringgit 1MDB scandal and demonstrate that he is not trying to shut down public query and even parliamentary debate on the latest financial scandal by the threat of legal suit against the DAP MP for PJ Utara, Tony Pua.
In fact, Najib should give a public undertaking that his threat of a legal suit against Tony Pua will not be used to shut down any public questioning of any aspect of 1MDB deals.
Najib should not shoot the messenger just because Tony’s message demanding full accountability and transparency about the 1MDB scandal is most embarrassing for him and his government – as the solution is not to ban all debate and discussion by threat of a legal suit but by full commitment to the principles of accountability, transparency and good governance as establishing a bipartisan Parliamentary Select Committee on 1MDB to ensure that there is no hanky-panky or impropriety in the government endorsement and involvement in 1MDB activities.