GeRAKAN SUPORT RCI

Gerakan supports RCI

KOTA KINABALU September 27, 2011: Peninsular-based Gerakan supports United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organization’s (UPKO) call for the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI), said its vice president, Datuk Raymond Tan Shu Kiah.

”Because of this increase (referring to the population of Sabah), people have made a lot of speculations and a solution to this, maybe we should set up an RCI to look into this matter because it will provide the answer,” he said.

”In this particular matter, Gerakan here and myself support the proposition, because we want to know what actually happened, all things that have been said, is it true. Was there actually some kind of scheme to increase the population so that there will be increase in the number of seats,” Tan told reporters when met at the Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd’s Hari Raya open house here yesterday.

He was asked to comment on the latest call by UPKO for the setting up of the RCI, where its president, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, reiterated during the party’s congress last week that an RCI was required to effectively address the long-standing illegal immigrants issues in Sabah.

Tan said while the government was already taking action to tackle the influx of illegal immigrants in Sabah, there were some questions like the sudden increase in the population that need to be put to rest and this can only be done through open investigation and discussion led by an independent committee.

”This is what Tan Sri (Dompok) has highlighted and I think it is like what the Chief Minister always said, something that we can sit down and talk about.

”A number of exercises have been taken by the government to control the issues of illegal immigrants. the government is already taking action, there is no doubt about that … but what Tan Sri was saying, I think, is that it has led to another issue, which is the issue of sudden increase in the population as he highlighted in the congress.

”I want to state that I support the statement made by Tan Sri because he really meticulously outlined a number of things, and based on what he said there are a number of things that we can sit down, look into it, and we can talk and discuss about it,” he said.

Tan pointed out that former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed had made a statement that Umno would not contest more than 50 percent of the seats and he (Tan) was one of the leaders present at the time when the statement was made.

He added that back then, up to 1994 and maybe 1999, Umno had never taken more than half of the total seats available.

”So, something has gone wrong in a way that after that period they get more seats. One of the reasons, maybe, is the increase in the population of the Bumiputera Malay, that in some of the areas they can actually divide and add seats… that the population has increased and in order to serve the people, they need to exercise a review and add more seats,” he said.