Day: October 18, 2015

Immigration Dept can impose travel ban against those who shamed Malaysia

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Source: The Malaysian Insider

The Immigration Department says it has the right to restrict Malaysians who has shamed the country from travelling abroad. – The Malaysian Insider filepic, October 18, 2015.

The Immigration Department will ban those who have disgraced the nation and deemed as a threat to the national security from leaving the country, its director-general Datuk Seri Mustafa Ibrahim said.

He said the department had powers to blacklist such individuals, reported The Star today.

“We are also in the verge of blacklisting those who are believed to be involved in human trafficking and other crimes,” the newspaper quoted him saying at a press conference after launching the East Coast shooting training programme yesterday.

Mustafa said these individuals should not blame the department and pretend to be surprised if their passports were blacklisted as they knew the reason.

“The department does not simply blacklist anyone’s passports as it wishes,” Mustafa was reported as saying. Read more →

Anti-graft group fears Kelantan deforestation will breed corruption, cronyism

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Source: The Malaysian Insider

The Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism is concerned over Kelantan’s logging policies after the state approved additional land for logging. – Photo courtesy of Flickr, October 18, 2015.

The Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) has raised concerns that the deforestation in Kelantan, following policies by the state government, will breed corruption and cronyism.

C4 executive director Cynthia Gabriel in a statement today called on the Kelantan government to reveal if the multiple approvals awarded to a private company has breached the state’s annual logging cap.

She said that during the height of the flood crisis in Kelantan last December, Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob blamed “illegal land clearing and logging” for the devastating floods in the state, and added the government had always capped logging at 5,960 hectares a year, the standard set by the National Land Council.

“So it comes as a shock to discover that Kelantan recently approved an additional 4,500 hectares to a private company for logging, while 9,000 acres (3,642 hectares) are to be used for oil palm planting.”

PAS Salak assemblyman Datuk Husam Musa recently said that a private company had allegedly obtained several approvals from the state government, raising the question if only crony companies were benefiting from the state’s generosity.

Gabriel said the lack of an open tender system and proper policies outlining the state’s approval procedures for such activities raises more questions. Read more →

Closing the education gap

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Source: NST Online

The authorities have to find a way to close the education gap between indigenous young Malaysians and their non-indigenous counterparts so they can become part of the solution to the challenges of the 21st Century. And it begins with the education of indigenous children.

The tragic incident of the missing Orang Asli children from SK Pos Tohoi in Gua Musang, Kelantan, highlighted the need to address the weaknesses of indigenous education. Many Orang Asli children remain illiterate as they have no access to schools near their homes, as the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia notes. Read more →