William Mawan Still Asleep

The Minister has been drinking and now he is sleeping. How simple issues become complicated problems where in the hands of dumb minister.

Source: The Star Online 21-Oct-2008

Taskforce to look into ICs, birth certs of Sarawak rural folk
By SHARON LING

KUCHING: The state government is setting up a taskforce to look into the problem of rural folk who still do not have identity cards or birth certificates.

Social Development and Urbanisation Minister Datuk William Mawan said his ministry will be the secretariat of the taskforce, which will also comprise other relevant authorities including the National Registration Department (NRD), the Education Department and police.

“There are people who have applied for their identity cards or birth certificates but due to some technical reasons -- in that they could not fully satisfy the requirements of the NRD -- their applications have been delayed.

Thus they are not in possession of legal documents to say that they are Sarawakians.

“The problem here is, if the parents don’t have documents, their children won’t have documents and neither will their grandchildren. It’s a vicious circle,” he told reporters after attending a briefing with NRD officers at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here on Tuesday.

Mawan said there were 3,887 reported cases of people who had not registered for personal documents yet, 4,800 school students without documents and 1,274 cases of documents which could not be delivered to applicants.

“These are the immediate areas that we want to address,” he said.

He added that a collaborative approach involving the NRD, other departments, district officers, elected representatives and village headmen was needed to tackle the matter effectively.

“As such, the taskforce will coordinate efforts to solve this problem,” he said.