KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 — Most citizenship applicants among the elderly fail the Malay language proficiency test, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the Malay language proficiency test is one of the requirements in applying for Malaysian citizenship.
“In other countries, their Best Practices require a mastery of the official language or speech of the country concerned; that is, those who apply for citizenship are required to be able to speak the country’s official language.
“(At KDN) The failing score (in Bahasa Melayu proficiency test) is ‘1’, and the passing score is ‘8’… sometimes those who score only a ‘2’ can be thankful we pass them… most of the older applicants are usually only fluent in their mother tongue.
“… this is one of the constraints that the Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN) faces,” he said during the oral question-and-answer session.
He was responding to Tanjung Piai MP Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng’s supplementary question regarding senior citizens’ applications needing approval and taking a long time.
Earlier, responding to an additional question from Tawau MP Lo Su Fui regarding the Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN) alleged lack of seriousness regarding the issue of citizenship status applications, Saifuddin said in 10 months, a total of 10,381 citizenship applications had been attended to, with the majority of cases involving child applications.
“Most of the applications involve cases of adopted and illegal children…they cannot go to school and have to pay expensive hospital bills (because they do not have citizenship status).
“We tell KDN officials to resolve this first, (but) instead, we were accused of approving tens of thousands of citizenship applications for Chinese nationals; this is mischievous,” he said.
Responding to Lo’s original question regarding a solution to the issue of residents not having complete documents for a citizenship application, Saifuddin said several initiatives were implemented, like the (NRD field programme) ‘Program Menyemai Kasih Rakyat’ (Mekar) to help people in rural areas obtain complete documents and related citizenship application matters.
— Bernama
