NRD SHOULD HAVE JURISDICTION TO MAKE OWN DECISION

NRD should have jurisdiction to make own decision – association

KOTA KINABALU August 25, 2011: The National Registration Department (NRD) as a department responsible to issue birth certificates, identification cards (NRIC) and death certificates, should have full jurisdiction to make its own decision.

Persatuan Peranakan Tionghua Ranau Sabah (PPTRS) president Alldem Chia said its technical committee, after sorting some legal opinions, believed that NRD should have the full jurisdiction on making their own decisions and implement them immediately.

“By this we mean by putting Sino dashed and whatever ethnic or nationalities, the applicants of birth certificates intend to put on the birth certificate,” he said in a statement yesterday.

“We would also like to suggest the NRD spare a line after the word Sino (Sino-__________ ) in their system without putting any specific ethnic group or nationalities so as to be able to accommodate any applicants who wanted their ancestry’s ethnic group or nationalities to be printed after the word Sino on their birth certificate, such as Sino-Tibetan/Melanau … and so on,” he added.

This will prevent any further delay on the implementation of Sino-ethnic group or nationalities on the birth certificate, he said adding: “As what our Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Dr Yee Moh Chia mentioned earlier on, it should not be a difficult task for NRD to modify their system to accommodate this type of genuine request.

Chia said that PPTRS believed the state government would not find it difficult to accept as this matter was purely an identity issue as far as ethnic group or race was concerned.

“As thus, we like to appeal to NRD to implement it as soon as possible,” he said.

With reference to the dialogue during the submission of the PPTRS’ memorandum to NRD director Ismail Ahmad, the association congratulated him for the decision to leave the option of the term Sino to be printed in the birth certificate, he stressed.

Alldem had handed over the memorandum during an UPKO Citizenship and Security Bureau’s courtesy call on Ismail early this month.

“Likewise, many thanks to all the good wishes from individuals, non-governmental organizations and even politicians like the state Deputy Chief Minister cum the Minister of Resource Development and Information Technology Datuk Dr Yee, Assistant Finance Minister Datuk Donald Mojuntin and many more,” he added.

“We are however of the same opinion as many that Sino Native is not a race or an ethnic group that should be used permanently. However as a temporary measure, we accept it since it is the only one with the word Sino in the NRD system.

“As agreed by the NRD director, it can be replaced with specific ethnic, race or nationalities once approval is granted by the state government. We are also made to understand that the NRD has already prepared their registration system to include 15 Sabah major ethnic origins (replacing the 11 that were rejected in 2009) pending the government’s approval,” he said.