KOTA KINABALU, Jan 25 ― The National Registration Department (NRD) clarified today that it issued 157 birth certificates and MyKads to Malaysians who lost their documents to fires in Sabah last year.
Sabah NRD director Datuk Ismail Ahmad today said rumours that illegal immigrants would take advantage of the department’s exercise in issuing the documents were baseless as the department’s mobile unit was only replacing the MyKads and birth certificates in legitimate cases.
“We are only replacing documents that were lost, which means their data is already pre-existing in our system. We did not issue any new documents or citizenships,” he told a news conference here.
He said the department issued 29 MyKads and birth certificates to the victims of the fire in SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin in March 2018, 12 to the Kampung Likas fire victims, 17 to the Semporna fire victims, 46 to the victims of the Putatan Kampung Pasir Putih fire, 13 to the Kampung Suok Papar victims, and 40 to the victims of the Kampung Kerakit fire on Pulau Banggi.
“The number is small, compared to the victims, but that is because many opt to apply for the replacement at the NRD offices themselves, which issues the documents on the spot compared to the unit, which takes up to a month.
“Most of the documents lost are birth certificates, which differ from the MyKads which people usually keep handy in their wallet,” he said.
Ismail insisted that there was no room for fraud in those cases.
“We also won’t stop this practice because we have to do it. These people are going through hardship so we want to make things easier for them. It’s not easy for them to come to our office sometimes especially in the case of the Banggi island fire recently,” he said.
Several parties and social media users have raised concerns about the prompt response by the department to issue MyKads to the victims, claiming that illegal immigrants would take advantage of the exercise to apply for citizenship.
Deputy director Adrian Allen Richard said that such allegations were untrue and said the department has practiced their mobile unit for disaster victims since 2000.
“Why raise it now? We have been doing this for other disasters even before. We are non-partisan and will respond to any villages or districts which need help with this,” he said.
