PARTI Warisan Sabah will pursue plans to for the state to have its own identity card or the “Sabah IC”.

Party treasurer Terrence Siambun said the identity card for “genuine Sabahans” was a core promise by Warisan at the 14^th general election and there are no plans to scrap it.

He was responding to claims by Sabah DAP Wanita chief Jannie Lasimbang that the Warisan-led state government will drop the proposal.

“Neither has Warisan president (Shafie Apdal) nor the deputy president nor any supreme council member said they have decided to scrap the Sabah IC plan,” he said in a statement today. 

The Sabah IC was recommended by the royal commission of inquiry into the state’s illegal immigrant problem or Projek IC, where non-citizens were given identity cards in large numbers in the 1990s.

The allegedly clandestine project involving ruling political parties and government agencies resulted in drastic changes to Sabah’s ethnic demographic.

Two days ago, the state assistant law and native affairs minister said the state government would not pursue a Sabah IC yet.

Siambun said while the proposed Sabah IC was not a part of Pakatan Harapan’s manifesto, it did not mean that the idea should be dropped altogether.

“Sabahans want solutions given by Sabahans and not one that is dictated from outside of Sabah.”

Siambun said Warisan would convince its Upko and PH partners in the government on the proposal, believing that they were just as keen on the idea.

“By issuing the Sabah card, we can at least reduce the threat of  militants or extremists who use Sabah as a transit point to travel to the peninsula. It will also help to screen Projek IC holders in the state, a problem that has remained unresolved.” – June 5, 2018.