KOTA KINABALU, Sept 9 — The former private secretary to a former Sabah chief minister today told the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants in Sabah that the federal and state governments were not involved in the ‘Project IC’.

Instead, Datuk Yahya Lampong, who served as private secretary to Tan Sri Harris Salleh from 1978 to 1979, said there were certain individuals who had taken advantage to make easy money through the project.

“Everybody knows that there were people who were taking advantage by selling identity cards to the foreign immigrants,” said the 203rd witness when questioned by conducting officer Datuk Azmi Arifin.

Yahya, who is also a former federal deputy minister, also denied being   involved in the ‘Project IC’ and the allegation that he too had profited from the project.

He said throughout his service with the state government, he was not aware of ‘Project IC’ and only knew about it after it was played up by the media and after the setting up of the RCI last year.

Yahya also refuted the claim that the then former deputy home minister Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayub was involved in the project.

“It’s just an allegation. Why accused the man after he had died? The allegation is baseless,” he said.

Yahya, who contested on a PKR ticket in the recent general election, also denied that he had met Megat Junid sometime in 1986 in Kuala Lumpur over the ‘Project IC’ as claimed by an earlier witness, Hassnar Ebrahim.

He said the allegation was not right as in 1985, he left Parti Berjaya and also denied that we had planned a working paper on new voters in the state.

Questioned by former chief judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Steve Shim Lip Kiong who chairs the five-member RCI panel, Yahya said the allegations against him with regard to ‘Project IC’ emerged after the RCI was set up. — Bernama