'Waytha not serious in resolving stateless Indians'

The five years that Deputy Minister P Waythamoorthy needs to fix the problem of stateless Indians is but an excuse for not resolving the problem, said PKR.

Party vice president N Surendran in a statement today blasted Waythamoorthy’s statement as “a complete betrayal of the Indian community by the Najib-BN regime”.

“The time period of five years is excessive, unacceptable and simply an excuse not to resolve the stateless problem.

“It is clear from Waythamoorthy's statement that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and the BN have no genuine intention to end the suffering of the stateless Indians,” he said.

He added that the leader of the Hindraf faction that had signed a memorandum of understanding with Najib prior to his appointment as a deputy minister, had lied about PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim’s commitment to resolving the long-standing issue.

Waythamoorthy on Saturday claimed that Anwar had mislead the public, and that the latter was only going to issue ICs for 20,000 cases pending with the National Registration Department (NRD).

“This is a complete lie. Anwar has repeatedly pledged to resolve all cases of statelessness, which includes the 300,000 stateless Indians.

“This is clear from the latest statement on the subject issued by Anwar on March 7, 2013 and available on anwaribrahimblog.com,” said the Padang Serai MP.

‘Dragging feet’
He said the BN was merely “dragging its feet” on the issue that involved people who have “lived in Malaysia for generations” who were “already citizens by operation of law” but denied documentation because of the NRD’s bureaucracy.

“They are stateless because the NRD under the Home Ministry's directions have thrown up a wall of bureaucratic and unreasonable conditions against stateless Indians who apply for blue MyKads.

“There is no basis whatsoever to take another five years to resolve the problem,” he said.

He added that in the five years that Waythamoorthy proposes to take to solve the problem, 49,000 stateless Indian children would have been deprived their education and thus have their futures “ruined”.

He reminded the new deputy minister that Pakatan Rakyat has pledged and is committed to resolve the problem within 100 days of forming the federal government,

“Resolving the terrible plight of stateless Malaysians will be a priority for any Pakatan Rakyat administration,” he said.

In what the opposition called a "cheap gimmick", Prime Minister Najib Razak handed out 120 MyKads to stateless Indians in April.

During the exercise, the NRD claimed that turnout to receive the documents showed that the number of stateless was not 300,000 as PKR claims.

Meanwhile in its newspaper advertisements nationwide following the MOU, the Hindraf splinter had said its rep, likely referring to Waythamoorthy, would find a solution “through an open, sympathetic and simple plan” that would be submitted to the prime minister for approval, within three months of his appointment.

'Waytha behaving like demented witch'

In another related development, MIC slammed Waythamoorthy's statement last Saturday that he will not work with MIC despite MIC deputy President Dr S Subramaniam extending an olive branch to him.

"MIC has endeavoured and offered to work with Waythamoorthy out of respect for the prime minister's choice. But surely the prime minister would not have expected such vile behaviour from one of his deputy ministers," said MIC national treasurer Jaspal Singh in a statement today.

Describing Waythamoorthy (left) as "clearly insincere and intent on self-aggrandisement", Jaspal said Waythamoorthy had used Hindraf as a platform to negotiate a position for himself even to the extent of betraying a member of his own family.

The senator stressed that the issues of Indian community can only be addressed with the cooperation of the ministries within the government.

"Waythamoorthy says he has a plan for everything. He remains coy, however, on the details, probably because there aren't any.

"So we will leave Waythamoorthy to continue behaving like a demented witch with a secret potion. His brand of snake oil will be exposed once applied. It will cure no ills."

On the other hand, Jaspal said MIC will continue to work hard on uplifting the Indian community and transparent reports will be released on a regular basis to keep all stakeholders informed of the progress.

"There are those who doubt us. We seek no quarrel with them but invite them to meet us and give us their views. Where they have constructive ideas, whether they are activists or oppositionists, we will be happy to work with them towards the common good of the community," he added.