923,000 non-M'sians in Sabah alarming

KOTA KINABALU - Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) said there is an anomaly in the State population statistics released by the Statistics Department if one looks at the population based on race category.

Deputy President Datuk Eric Majimbun said this is particularly so in the population of those grouped under the "Other Bumiputera" and "Malay" categories, which recorded a drastic increase.

Besides, he said the figure of non-Malaysians in Sabah accounting for 923,000 out of the 3.12 million population is alarming.

The census figures provided by the Department seems quite odd compared to previous ones, he said in response to Chief Statistician Dr Haji Abdul Rahman's statement that "the increase in Sabah's population was a bit high because of migration into the State but that there is nothing odd about it".

Majimbun said the statistics for individual race category for Sabah in 2010 showed there were 545,700 Kadazandusun, while for Bajau (398,100), Murut (97,100), Malay (362,700), other bumiputeras (448,800), Chinese (280,600), other races (148,700) and non-Malaysians (923,000), making the total population of 3,120,040.

The 2000 population census, however, showed there were 458,769 Kadazandusun then, while for Bajau (330,996), Murut (80,872), Malay (225,819) plus Muslim Bumiputera (69,014), Chinese (254,528), others (133,766) and migrants/non-Malaysian (552,987), making the total 2,488,248.

And the 1991 population census revealed there were 321,834 Kadazandusun, Bajau (203,457), Murut (50,255), Malay (57,375) plus Muslim Bumiputera (48,365), other bumiputeras (246,735), Chinese (200,056), others (180,433) and migrants (425,433), making the total of 1,734,685.

The government's lump sum figure for 1980 showed there were 838,141 natives in Sabah then, while Chinese (163,996) and others (8,296), making up a population of 1,011,046.

These clearly showed a puzzling sudden booming in the population of those grouped under certain race categories which warrants serious attention, said Majimbun.

"The tremendous sudden increase in certain race categories is alarming and threatening our harmonious and peace-loving citizens in Sabah ...who are these people actually?" he charged.

Majimbun said it is worrying because the census figures between 1970 to 2010 showed a 390 percent increase (from 636,431 in 1970 to 3,120,040 in 2010), compared to neighbouring Sarawak which had a total population of 976,269 in 1970 and 2,420,009 in 2010, an increase by only 148 percent.

"It cannot be taken as an assumption that all this while the government statistics is wrong," he said.