By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Aug 4: Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah reminds Pending assemblyperson Violet Yong that the final say in approving citizenship application lies with the Home Affairs Minister as it is his jurisdiction not Sarawak Special Committee on Citizenship (SCC).
To Fatimah, when Yong called SCC ineffective, Yong was shooting herself in the foot.
“When she accuses SSC of being ineffective, her action is like ‘Meludah ke langit kena muka sendiri’. When she points a finger at us, she is actually pointing four fingers to the Home Ministry,” Fatimah told DayakDaily.
Fatimah was responding to the recent statement of Yong who said it was wise that Home Affairs Minister to dissolve SCC as the committee headed by Fatimah did not perform effectively.
“Yong in her quest to score a political point doesn’t realize that when Home Minister dissolve SSC, all applications from Sarawak will now be placed in the same basket as other hundreds of applications from other states!
“No more special channel. We have lost our special status in citizenship applications,” Fatimah said.
On the less than satisfactory numbers of approvals, Fatimah reminded Yong again that the final say lies with the Home Affairs Ministry which did not provide reasons as to why the bulk of applications were not approved.
“Even state JPN (National Registration Department) were not informed on why the applications were not approved.
“But being in the SSC, we can see the pattern of contributing factors for rejecting these applications.
“We fought for these cases especially for adopted children, though no fault of theirs, they are blacklisted because of improper adoption.
“To point a finger at SSC and label us as ineffective is typical tactic of the opposition,” said Fatimah who is also Dalat assemblyperson.
Fatimah said SCC met monthly and submitted all 723 applications received since 2016, 120 applications were approved although SCC endorsed much much more than that.
“We have done our part in creating a direct channel in terms of submission to Home Affairs Ministry.
“Only Sarawak was given this channel because we asked for it, there is a need for it. As Tok Nan (late Chief Minister Pehin Sri Adenan Satem) said ‘Mun orang lain aku sik peduli. Mun hal Sarawak aku peduli’,” said Fatimah.
Fatimah also opined that Yong’s recent statement showed that the latter was shallow in her understanding of the federal constitution and application process with regards to citizenship.
“The statement just shows Violet Yong ‘s little understanding on the work processes involving granting Citizenship under 15A of Federal Constitution and that the jurisdiction lies with the Home Ministry, under Pakatan Harapan (PH).” — DayakDaily
