KUALA LUMPUR, July 19 ― Following a series of reported problems about Malaysia’s immigration system, DAP’s Steven Sim Chee Keong called today for a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to be established on immigration reform.

The Bukit Mertajam MP said that the people can no longer rely on any task force that is established by the government to solve the problems with the system.

“Our immigration problem is in a very critical state now with 2-3 million undocumented migrants in the country. Malaysia has for the last 16 years, rated poorly in the annual US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report,” he said in a statement.

“Terrorism-related travels are posing a serious threat to our security,” he added.

Sim said he would be writing to the Palace to seek an intervention from the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong.

Two months ago, Malay Mail highlighted flaws with the Malaysia Immigration System (MyIMMS) that had allowed entry of illegal workers, which then prompted Home Deputy Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed to announce a comprehensive upgrade of existing systems.

But Sim pointed out that the MyEG foreign worker permit renewal system also illegally renewed permits for over 9,000 migrant workers between 2013 and 2014.

“All these systems are provided by private contractors who were awarded contracts without open tender,” he said.

The federal opposition lawmaker also said that a solution to the MyIMMS problem was already signed last November when a contract was awarded to Prestariang Sdn Bhd to implement an overall upgrade on the system called Sistem Kawalan Imigresen Nasional (SKIN).

“With this contract, Prestariang joins the exclusive and lucrative club of a handful of private contractors supplying key services to the Immigration Department,” he added.

“Most of the companies have overlapping roles, some of them were merely performing paper-shifting “middleman” work while raking in easy multi-million profits,” he said.

Sim said this eventually caused poor system integration, which has been admitted to by MyIMMS contractor HeiTech Padu.