Warisan denies Shafie’s alleged Sulu Sultanate connection, questions govt on non-citizen influx
PENAMPANG, Sept 12 — Parti Warisan wants the authorities to investigate a news portal for defamation after claiming that party president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal was friendly with the Sulu Sultanate.
Parti Warisan Youth chief Terence Au said an article by Sabahkini2.com claiming that Shafie and Parti Warisan were friendly with the Sulu leaders was false.
“We strongly denied the allegation that Shafie has a good relationship with the Sulu leaders as mentioned in the article.
“Instead, Shafie himself has asked in Parliament, who was the mastermind in the alleged Sulu claim,” he said after lodging a police report at the Penampang police station on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Au also asked the GRS-PH government to explain the increase of non-Sabahans living in the state, which has reached over one million.
“According to data released by the Malaysian Statistics Department (Malaysian Population and State Statistics 2020 – 2024) a total of 27.88 per cent equivalent to 1,043,400 Sabah residents are non-Malaysian citizens.
“The statistical estimate until the middle of 2024, caused concern among Sabahans because the number was the largest in history. It witnessed an increase of 233,000 in 2020, which is a total of 810,4008 people.
The influx of non-citizens began in 2023, with 921,000 people, an increase of 156,800 compared to 764,200 in 2022,” he said.
Au added that the current government had tried to reduce the influx of illegal immigrants (PTI) by arresting and deporting them but the 1,043,400 gives the opposite picture.
“GRS when they were still with Bersatu, were quite vocal in playing PTI issues throughout the State election campaign in 2020, including the PAS Sementara Sabah (PSS) issue.
“However, after becoming the government, GRS announced the Kad Warga Asing which was rebranded from PSS. Now the Kad Warga Asing has been changed to the Sabah Workers Integrated Management System (SWIMS) where almost 40 thousand foreign workers have been registered as of April this year.
“Because of this, the government, especially Chief Minister Hajiji Noor cannot remain silent about the influx of more than one million Sabahans who are not citizens starting from 2023,” he said.