PENDING assemblyman Violet Yong today said the Sarawak government has no autonomy over immigration, only “administrative rights endorsing what the federal government directs the state to do”.

The DAP lawmaker said the Sarawak government was “only blowing its own trumpet by claiming to have full autonomy over it while in actual fact, it is Putrajaya running the show”.

She said the state government could not claim to have full autonomy over immigration when it does not even have the basic data system to capture all the information of the people travelling in or out of the state.

“We absolutely have no idea on the personal details, the number of people, their country of origin or even on West Malaysians who came here,” she said in her debate in the state assembly this afternoon.

“We are also not sure if we were outnumbered by non-Sarawakians either legal or illegal.

“When West Malaysians came in droves to work, we are not sure if they entered with work permit or have abused their social visit pass.”

She claimed many Petronas workers coming from the peninsular were “using this loophole” to work in the state.

Yong also claimed the state government could not produce off-hand the statistic of the number of foreigners or West Malaysians who are married to locals or the number of legal/illegal foreign workers in Sarawak without having to call Putrajaya and rely on their information, which can or not be true.

She said by allowing such a situation to continue is a threat to the state.

“Would you dare to trust Putrajaya given that we have been bullied and robbed by them for the past 54 years?”

Yong said another example on how the state has no full autonomy over immigration was on the collection of payment for work permits to work in Sarawak.

“All levies imposed and collected belonged to the federal (government) and not us. We do not benefit from the collection at all. Do you find this fair and would you still claim you have full autonomous power?” she said.

Yong added that Sarawak should have its own immigration database to allow full autonomy. – May 15, 2017.