HARIAN Metro (HM) has done the country a favour. On Wednesday, the paper exposed flaws in an exclusive visa-approving contract that reads like a “plot to sell the country”.
Under the agreement with the Immigration Department, Ultra Kirana Sdn Bhd (UKSB) has the sole right to process and approve visa applications through the Electronic Travel Registration & Information (eENTRI) system made by Chinese, Indians and nationals from a few other countries.
And they seem to be monkeying with the visa approval process without any apparent oversight by the Immigration Department. Abdication best descibes it. HM wanted to expose the monkey business, and it did just that in an exposure that has shocked the country.
It submitted an online application accompanied by a fake passport with a picture of a monkey to one of the agents appointed by UKSB in China. Within five minutes of the payment of RM100, the visa was approved. The eNTRI system also failed in another big way.
When another application was made on behalf of a blacklisted Chinese national, whose picture was cut and pasted from the website, the system approved it as quickly as it did the first. Not fake-proof at all. All a foreign criminal who was expelled from Malaysia has to do is to make an application with a new passport. He will be back in a jiffy to do all the mischief he wants. If this is not a plot to sell the country, what else is?
Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has called for a review of the contract. He should do more. He should put a stop to all efforts to privatise what is essentially a public function.
Contracting out such critical functions of the government will be detrimental to national security. There is a reason why the immigration function is called border control in other parts of the world, especially in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. They make sure that their borders are not porous. They regulate entry and exit of people, animals, plants and goods.
By “privatising” a critical public function, we are unwittingly opening the gates of the country to terrorists and criminal elements. And floodgates at that. The spike in criminal activities in the past few years is a tell-tale sign of this.
There may be an argument for a reduced presence of the government in certain areas. Managing national security is not one of them.
Border control must remain in the hands of the government.
A business model must not be allowed to creep in. The paradigm of a business is to make things fast for a profit.
Border control should not be operated on a business model.
Doing so will put our borders up for sale.
UKSB raked in RM198 million between March 2016 and September this year, but not a single sen went into the government coffers. Private companies are not designed to look after national interest.
Their raison d’être is not the same as that of a government agency. We must not privatise the border. It is not open for business.