KUALA LUMPUR – Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has vehemently denied that the current number of pending citizenship applications stands at one million.
Instead, he asked Lo Su Fui (Tawau-GRS), during today’s Dewan Rakyat session, to produce evidence on where and when the latter obtained the figure.
Saifuddin said he had never heard of such a high number throughout his 10-month tenure as home minister.
“If there is any case (regarding citizenship applications) that has gotten its ruling in court, and is faced with issues at the National Registration Department (JPN), then please do let me know.
“I have gone through and decided over 10,381 applications for citizenships in the last 10 months. And in fact I have informed the ministry’s officer to prioritise this issue first and foremost.
“If only they knew how hard the officers have worked… (in attending to) 10,381 applications in ten months and they still deemed the ministry is not serious in solving undocumented or stateless issues, then we would say ‘thank you’.”
He was answering Lo’s question regarding the ministry’s seriousness in resolving the issues regarding undocumented residents, where he claimed there are over a million of them in Sabah alone.
Lo, in asking his question, pointed out that the undocumented residents faced bigger issues such as the lack of access to education or subsidised hospital fees.
Saifuddin, in agreeing with this, also brought up remarks that the ministry has been accused of easily approving citizenship applications from China.
“This is an evil (accusation),” he said.
He also informed the Dewan Rakyat this morning that most of the pending citizenship applications involve adoption cases.
Earlier, Saifuddin said the Home Ministry has constantly updated its standard operating procedures (SOP), which are often referred to as the clients charter by the ministry.
“The ministry has also carried out initiatives such as the Menyemai Kasih Rakyat (Mekar) outreach programme, where JPN officers would go into rural areas and carry out advisory services, manage identity cards, birth or death certificates as well as citizenship application.
“Meanwhile at governance level, the ministry has formed a taskforce to attend to the undocumented residents’ issues.
“So these are the initiatives that the ministry has carried out to assist those that have issues, especially insufficient documents that would cause issues in their citizenship application.”
Saifuddin also said that the ministry is so serious about handling undocumented residents’ issues, that it has lowered the requirement needed for Bahasa Melayu language proficiency.
“Most of the elderly who applied for citizenship failed to pass the Bahasa Melayu language proficiency test.
“Usually, wherever you go, the main requirement for a person to apply for the country’s citizenship is that they have to have excellent proficiency in its national language.
“The marks for failing, in such a test, are 1 and 8 for passing. These days, I have approved those who get just two marks, even though the applicant has basic understanding and couldn’t construct a proper sentence.
“This is among the issues that we faced (in attending to the application), and we tried to help as much,” he said, in answering to Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng (Tanjung Piai-BN), who inquired about the ministry’s efforts in helping senior citizens complete their citizenship applications. – October 23, 2023