POKOK SENA – Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail today denied allegations that his ministry is granting Malaysian citizenship to foreigners on a large scale, particularly those from China.
Saifuddin, without elaborating on the allegations, described them as heinous accusations made without a sense of responsibility, which impacts the ministry’s efforts to resolve the current citizenship application issue.
“This is what we are doing, and it is not easy because the issue of citizenship is highly sensitive, but I completely reject the accusation that this is a process of granting citizenship to foreigners, particularly Chinese citizens.”
“Give us the space to resolve the issue of the future of children from Malaysian families whose marriage registration process was not completed properly,” he said.
“There are multiple issues, and we want to help.”
He said this to reporters after presenting a donation for the purchase of a hearse to Ar-Raudhah Mosque, Sg Durian, here today.
Saifuddin also presented Khatanak Sayyan, 19, who had been without an identity document since birth, with an approval letter for his citizenship application at the event.
Commenting further, Saifuddin said there were more than 140,000 citizenship applications received by his ministry, of which 9,000 had been processed, including applications that had been approved.
He added that if the data related to the granting of citizenship is distorted and disseminated, it could cast a negative light on his ministry’s efforts to resolve citizenship issues, including many that were caused by delays in marriage registration.
“There are various reasons for this. Sometimes parents fail to immediately register a marriage, despite the fact that the marriage certificate is an important prerequisite document for citizenship. When there is a lack of that, over time, problems arise for the children.
“So, when they (parents) try to correct that, they submit the application, and it takes a long time (to be processed). In this case, it took 19 years, some take 20 years, 15 years is normal, and a lot take 12 years. So, that’s what I meant when I said that the purpose of granting and simplifying the citizenship approval is for cases such as this – for Malaysian parents and children who were born here,” he said.
Previously, the National Registration Department was reported to have denied claims that about 54,000 Chinese nationals are in the process of being granted Malaysian citizenship, supposedly to become DAP voters. – August 26, 2023