P Ramasamy said as Malaysia did not have a refugee policy, the 400 Syrians would be “given red carpet treatment while thousands of refugees in the country” from places such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka were without refugee status.
“There are also more than an estimated 300,000 residents who are born and bred in Malaysia who are without citizenship status.
“Yet their (Putrajaya’s) priority is to score points internationally by agreeing to bring another batch of more than 400 Syrians who have been affected by the on-going civil war,” he said in criticising Putrajaya for its misplaced priorities.
Ramasamy was commenting on Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s announcement at a meeting at the United Nations on Monday that Malaysia was set to receive 421 Syrian migrants by the end of this year.
“I’m pleased to share at this summit that we have received 79 Syrian migrants in two batches by May 2016, and we look forward to receiving another 421 Syrian migrants by year-end,” Bernama quoted Zahid as saying.
Ramasamy, who is also Penang deputy chief minister, said it was not the first time the government was carrying out such an action for the sake of international publicity.
“The government, just for the sake of publicity, brought in some Bosnians (in the 1990s), but most of them then left the country once stability returned to their country,” he added.
Ramasamy also brought up the plight of 150 Malaysian medical science students in Egypt racking up a huge debt in unpaid university fees.
“The government cannot even pay the fees of overseas students who are stranded in places such as Egypt but yet wants to boast of its humanitarian approach to the problem of Syrian refugees,” he said, before questioning the ability of the Muslim world to help end the Syrian crisis.