By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Monday, March 30, 1992:
Call on Cabinet to act as speedily in the blue identity card question as in withdrawing the FIC proposed new guidelines.
It is significant that since the DAP raised the issue at the DAP Negri Sembilan State Committee “Party Reform” meeting in Seremban last Tuesday, no MCA Minister or leader dare to give a clear-cutguarantee on behalf of the government that no blue identity card would be converted to red identity card in the change for new identity card because of spelling or clerical errors in decades-old documents.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Af¬fairs, Ong Ka Ting, should not try to cloud the issue and must address the question in the minds of all Malaysians: What happens if a citizen could not correct the spelling or clerical errors in decades old documents, such as birth certificate, citizenship certificate or even the citizenship papers of the parents who may have been deceased for decades?
Would such blue identity-card holders be refused the issue of the new blue identity card? Would he
end up getting a red identity card?
As no MCA Minister or leader can give a clear-cut assurance on behalf of the government, the four
MCA Ministers and one Gerakan Minister should bring this matter to the Cabinet on Wednesday for
a policy decision to be taken that no blue identity card holder when changing for the new identity card would be reduced to a red identity-card status because of spelling or clerical errors in decades-old documents.
DAP calls on the Cabinet to act as speedily in the blue identity card matter as it did with regard to the withdrawal of the Foreign Investment Committee’s proposed new guidelines.
National Registration Department should give all Arti¬cle 30 citizens eight years to change to new
identity cards.
Ong Ka Ting said the Article 30 citizens have become a ‘problem’ case and asked them not to apply
for change of new identity cards until the ‘problems’ are sorted out.
Why should there be any ‘problems’ with the Article 30 citizens when there was a verification process
of all Article 30 cases in 1970?
As the Article 30 citizens are asked not to apply for new identity cards at present, then all Article 30 citizens should be given an extra two years to apply for the new identity card i.e. eight years compared
to the six years for all others.