KOTA KINABALU, Jan 25 — Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) director Datuk Ismail Ahmad today said that the setting up of a mobile unit to reach out to natives in the state to tackle the issue of late birth certificate registration has been a positive move.
He said the mobile unit has helped tremendously in reaching out to remote areas and islands where the communities struggle the most to obtain birth certificates.
“Since our inception in 2000, the state NRD has issued over 46,918 birth certificates through its mobile unit to register newborn and late births.
“This is a priority for our Sabahan natives who live in the hard-to-reach interior areas as well as far-flung islands where a day trip can cost a lot of money and takes up a lot of time,” he said.
Ismail said the department also makes scheduled visits to areas such as Paitan, Beluran, Pegalungan and Pensiangan where the problem of not registering births is high.
“We are also planning regular visits to Banggi island, the biggest island in Malaysia, which is situated on northern Sabah and costs at least RM170 per person for a half day trip,” he said.
Ismail said NRD works together with district officers and local village heads who provide them with information on the number of applications in the area.
“We get information from the district officer who sends us the applications. Then we verify to see if they qualify. But we will go anywhere where we are needed, even if it is only for one applicant,” he said.
Ismail stressed that the practice was aimed at registering local natives who often miss the deadline of up to 48 days after birth due to various factors such as poverty, awareness and education, logistics and social factors like domestic problems and child born out of wedlock.
“Based on our observation, most cases are due to the high cost of travelling to the nearest NRD office. In Pegalungan for instance, it costs RM700 to charter a boat to go to Nabawan. In Banggi, its RM150 per person to go the Karakit jetty and then you still have to pay another RM20 for the ferry to Kudat, which only does one trip back at 2pm.
Ismail also defended the late birth registration programme in Sabah after a non-governmental organisation Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS) called for it to be halted.
APS vice president Paul Kadau said it was suspicious that 80,000 late birth registrations managed to have their applications approved in 10 years, alleging that there is a concern over possible abuse of granting citizenship.
Ismail said that the department must continue with the programme because the problem was still rampant here.
“We have so many people of all races, our own people who are poor and live in remote areas. We don’t want our own people to not have birth certificates because this will lead to more problems later.
“We have offices in all districts but we can’t just wait for them to come to us. More problems will come up if we wait — they will have problems with school, marriage, land and so much more. So we will go where we need to,” he said.
He also stressed that there was a perception of the department giving documents to unqualified people, but said many of the races on islands like the Bajau Suluk, Molbok, Tidung, Ubian and Kadayan race are also Sabah natives.
“They deserve citizenship if they qualify. But we know how to differentiate between a local native and a foreigner. We are experts. We also differentiate between babies born to locals and foreigners with different coloured birth certificates,” he said, explaining that pink was for foreigners while Malaysians had a green certificate.
