by R.Q.
I’m a Malaysian who has been working in Singapore for the past 12 years. (And yes, I am a proud Kuantan-ite)
I just wanted to let you know of two incidents at the Kuantan IC registration department, and perhaps you may want to warn readers of your blog who are Kuantan residents.
Last April 2006, I went back on Good Friday to apply for my MyKad in Kuantan. After they had taken my photo, I was directed back to the counter, where I was told that I could not make my IC there, since the computer records showed that the last time I made my IC, it was in the Petaling Jaya New Town office.
I questioned the officer there, asking why my records could be accessed, but I wasn’t allowed to do it in Kuantan. A supervisor came over, and told me the same thing. Grumpily, I left, since I had wasted a trip there, and had gone back with the sole intent of making my IC.
In November, I made a trip to the PJ office, and upon submitting my application, the man behind the counter said “You lost your MyKad is it?” to which I replied “No, first time applying.” Then he said “You collected your MyKad in July, what. It says here.” And again I said “No, this is the first time I’m applying for it.” He then turned his computer screen to me, and asked, “Then who is this? This is you, right?” And to my shock and horror, it was the photo I had taken in Kuantan!
(At that point, I was too stunned to even know how the photo got there, and only recalled later that I was sent to the photo-taking counter before being sent back to the regular application counter.)
He must have thought I was lying to avoid the fine, and went ahead and processed my new application.
Feeling uneasy, I asked to speak to a supervisor/manager.
When I told the supervisor the situation, she punched my IC number into the computer, and she could only retrieve the information that was sent in just minutes before by the other officer. Apparently, any new information updates and deletes what was there previously, so once you enter in new information, there is no way WHATSOEVER to retreive earlier information. There is no backup, no records, nothing.
So she said “I can’t do anything, sorry.” I told her, “Well, what if there is a copy of my IC out there, being used for some criminal, terrorist or other activity?” Her reply was “just hope for the best.”
Reassuring, she was not.
My guess is that once the Kuantan people found out I was living in Singapore, and wasn’t going to be back to collect my IC for a while, they just processed the application–with whose name, and whose photo, there is no way of telling–and updated the information after the IC was collected. Since the new information would override the old one, there would be no evidence of any tampering. It’s the perfect system for making fake ICs.
If this wasn’t bad enough, when I met my parents at Christmastime, I told them what happened to me, and they said they had recently made their new MyKads too. They then told me that they had to pay RM10 for three photos each. “What….” I said, “it’s now all digital, what photos?” So my father went over and pulled out six polaroid photos from the drawer. “IC photos lah,” my dad said “they took these and scanned it in.” This was the most ridiculous story I had ever heard
Not being very tech-savvy, these crooks sent my parents to the little shop in the building to get their photos taken. The sort of shop that does photostatting and IC photos before digital cameras made this part of their business obsolete. But the Kuantan IC office people have a side business where they fleece innocent or uneducated folks of RM10 for an absolutely unnecessary service!
Something is rotten in the state of Pahang. And it’s the Kuantan IC Registration Department.
I am not sure what can be done, if anything. There is no crime to report, and anything else such as any kind of letter, will be summarily ignored. And if applicants are asked to go over and take their photos, only to be told later of some lame excuse that they are unable to make their ICs, there is no way of getting them to delete the photo they just took of you either.