STATELESS Malaysians will be given a year to apply for citizenship, said Hamzah Zainuddin. 

“I will soon announce a set of guidelines for those who believe they are Malaysians to register. 

“It’s illogical for those who are born here and lived here for more than 63 years (since independence) not to be registered as Malaysian citizens. 

“I will give a one-year period for all these people to register with the relevant documents to certify they are Malaysians,” said the home minister during his winding-up speech for his ministry’s budget debate in Dewan Rakyat today. 

He said this was a problem that had gone on for far too long. 

“We don’t want this to be politicised as it’s not racial,” said the Larut MP.

Hamzah was responding to several MPs who asked about the issue during their debate. 

But Charles Santiago (Klang-PH) reminded Hamzah he had given more than 300 cases to former home minister Muhyiddin Yassin in 2019 but had yet to receive any news. 

“These cases were backed with documents and all but to date there have been no news from the Home Ministry,” said Santiago. 

According to a mapping project by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees Malaysia, there were 12,400 stateless persons residing in Peninsular Malaysia in 2017. A total of 12,078 had applied for citizenship with the National Registration Department while 2,359 have acquired citizenships.

The issue of statelessness is a legacy problem that has affected Malaysian Indians the most as many were born in the estates and had no means of registering themselves. 

On another matter, Hamzah told Parliament the government had not been informed of any terrorism issues linked to controversial preacher Dr Zakir Naik. 

“We cooperate with many enforcement agencies throughout the world. But according to police, India has not notified them about this,” said Hamzah. 

The minister was responding to R.S.N. Rayer (Jelutong-PH) who asked about news reports that the Indian authorities had busted a terror plot linked to Zakir. 

Meanwhile, Dewan Rakyat approved the budgets for three more ministries, bringing the total to 25 out of 27. 

Funds approved today were for the Federal Territories, Home and Defence Ministries.

Both the home and defence budgets were approved by a voice vote while the FT Ministry’s budget was approved by 110 votes to seven against, with 31 abstentions and 72 absentees. – December 14, 2020.