will we ever stop waiting?

sir norman frank sisson passed away in ipoh yesterday, after waiting 17 years to be a malaysian citizen. he apparently never got an answer, at least while he was alive. ironically, after no action was taken on his application for over a decade, a decision to grant his citizenship was made in a day, after his plight was highlighted. but his wish was granted only after he passed on. his citizenship is just a useless piece of paper now. like our driving licence.

the immigration department said there were no records of his application. maybe.

or there could be another theory.

his application may have been posted but never delivered. the pos laju messenger said there was no one at the immigration department during working hours on a working day, so he left a postcard there, for the letter to be collected from the post office. as there was no directive for staff on how to act on "mail could not be delivered by pos laju" postcards, it was not collected and destroyed after three months. a two-day crash course was held at genting highlands the following year on the matter, with speakers from pos laju and the immigration department. it was decided that pos laju staff go beyond the post box on the ground floor. only if the office door is locked can it be concluded that the office is empty. it was also decided that a similar approach be adopted for residential areas. an expert will be flown in from bangladesh to pursue the matter further.

or the citizenship application was actually delivered within 8 days by pos laju to the immigration department in 1989. it stayed in the mail room for two weeks because the staff were attending a seminar in kuantan. upon their return, they wanted to act upon it immediately but the officer-in-charge was on her yearly maternal leave. she returned during the fasting month, and despite working thoughout lunch in the month, could not clear her in-file. she retired in 1993, before completing her in-file.

there was a revamp of the immigration department after that. the new director-general made new plans and promises which were highlighted daily in the newspaper. after six months, they began applying for iso standards. all immigration departments were renovated nationwide. new counters, new computers, new carpets, new slogans, new mission statements.

the waiting time for passport applications was brought down from indefinitely to six months, with only 3 visits and 18 hours of lining up. it was a long process, but the results can clearly be seen today. if you apply for a passport now, you can get it within two days. you only need to go through an extremely simple process:

*line up to get a form for rm1
*fill it and line up again to get a number
*wait for your number to be called, 35 seats available for 246 people waiting
*return after two days and line up to hand in your slip and id
*wait for your number to be called
*collect passport and pay rm2 for your plastic cover
*return and log into airasia.com

after all this was settled, files of applications received for citizenship were ready to be acted upon. a directive was sent out after a two-month celebration on 30 years of excellence in the immigration department.

it may have been swiftly decided that applications which have been kept for more than six years be filed away. these will only be acted upon if a follow up call is made by the applicant. however, calls received will only be cross-checked against applications which are being processed.

as the days passed, new staff were hired to replace existing ones who were promoted. priorities remained, and time had to be spent on training new staff on how to make plastic flowers out of straws. staff also had to cater to the growing in-house demand for avon, amway and tupperware order, as well as the booming krepek business.

files kept being pushed further back. as file cabinets were full, some were lined up along the staircase, marked sulit. while sulit can mean confidential or difficult in the malay language, it only means diffficult in indonesian. hence the indonesian cleaning lady thrashed all files as she wanted her job to be easy.

good luck to those who tried to apply for malaysian citizenship, and to those who are still trying. one word of advice ... ease into the application slowly, and be patient. dont set deadlines. practise with a streamyx application.

god bless sir norman