Speaking in the Dewan Rakyat, Teo Nie Ching (PH-Kulai) said thousands of children born overseas were waiting for Putrajaya to take immediate action on their predicament, while amending the Federal Constitution would take time.
The former deputy education minister said 4,959 citizenship applications for children born overseas to Malaysian mothers were being processed by the home ministry, while 7,315 had been rejected from 2013 to 2018.
“The home minister himself said he felt sympathetic towards (the) mothers. I want to state here that sympathy is cheap, if he doesn’t dare to approve all these applications to prove that this government really is serious about the ‘Malaysian Family’ slogan.
“As home minister, he has the power to approve applications for citizenship under Article 15(a) of the Federal Constitution.
“So as the minister, what will he do now? He cannot ask these mothers and children to wait. Talk is cheap. Sympathy is cheap,” the DAP MP said while debating the 12th Malaysia Plan today.
Teo added that Hamzah should emulate his Cabinet colleague, law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, who chose not to appeal the Kuching High Court’s ruling on implementing Undi18 amendments.
“If this government really is a ‘Malaysian Family’ government, then approve these current applications, since the government is already going to amend the Federal Constitution.”
She also slammed the finance and education ministries over the delay in distributing 150,000 laptops to students from the B40 group, criticising the way they had passed the buck over the issue.
“Don’t tell me not one person from this bloated Cabinet can answer over the late delivery of the devices? ” she quipped.
Teo also slammed the way Putrajaya had approved RM38.5 million to renovate Seri Perdana during Muhyiddin Yassin’s tenure, when the laptops had yet to be distributed to the students.
She pointed out that it has been more than 300 days since finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz first announced the distribution during the budget last year.
“We’re not talking about 1.5 million or 500,000 laptops. It’s just 150,000 laptops. The government has fallen and been changed, but this promise has yet to be fulfilled,” she said.