KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Temporary Pass (PSS), which will be issued from June 1 next year, is aimed at monitoring the movements of foreigners in the state.
Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal said it was also an effort to ensure that no one could falsify the document.
“We are issuing the PSS to ensure that those (foreigners) who work in the plantations and in certain places can be monitored by the Home Affairs Ministry and the Immigration Department.
“Sabah has close to 500,000 foreigners in Sabah, so it is better for us to monitor them than not to know where they are,” he told reporters at the Sabah State Administrative Centre here yesterday.
Mohd Shafie said in the meeting of the Committee on the Management of Foreign Nationals, which was jointly chaired by himself and Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin last Friday, it was agreed that there was a necessity for a discussion to be held with the Philippines in ensuring that Philippine nationals who had been deported should have valid travel documents if they wanted to return to Sabah.
The chief minister also said that the deployment of foreign workers, especially labourers from Indonesia, should also be carefully managed to avoid a labour shortage since the relocation of Indonesia’s capital to East Kalimantan would attract its citizens there. – Bernama
