No big deal!

It's okay, I guess. A few million Malaysians had never left the country because they either couldn't afford it or got no reason to.

So, the 300,000 Malaysians 'trapped' over their own 'wrongdoings' need no special treatment from the government, the Immigration Dept and politicians. They only know how to make money but had evaded taxes while some are bankrupt.

Over 300,000 Malaysians, including “Tan Sris”, “Datuks” and “Datuk Seris”, celebrities and chief executive officers of big companies have been barred from leaving Malaysia, the Daily Express reported.

In revealing this, Immigration Department Deputy Director-General (operations) Datuk Sakib Kusmi said this was because the 326,533 were either declared bankrupt for outstanding debts or had not paid income tax.

According to the local daily, Sakib said as of Jan 21, the data from 13 agencies revealed that 326,533 Malaysians and 356,461 foreigners were barred from leaving the country.

“There are indeed many cases of VIPs and VVIPs being blacklisted. Most of them don’t even know they have been blacklisted and have either forgotten to pay their income tax or failed to repay large bank loans.

“Some only learn about their travel status when they want to go pilgrimage. But they will not be given special treatment when they are detained and they will not be allowed to travel abroad until they clear matters pending with the respective agencies,” he was quoted as saying.

He said those who were blacklisted would only be allowed to travel again once clearance was obtained from the respective agencies or on special grounds where the applicant was able to provide the relevant agency with a satisfactory explanation.

“For example, if a chief executive officer who had been blacklisted for forgetting to pay his income tax had an important meeting to attend abroad and he made a special request to the Inland Revenue Board with the assurance that he would pay up when he returned, his application might be considered.”

Sakib said the names of those to be blacklisted had been forwarded to the Immigration Department, adding that the number of cases had increased over the years.

He added that the highest number of names of blacklisted Malaysians were forwarded by the Insolvency Department with 189,780 names, followed by the Inland Revenue Board with 78,158 names for unresolved tax matters and the National Higher Education Fund Corporation with 29,398 names for failure to repay education loans.

He said the department had blacklisted 12,950 locals for flouting Immigration laws adding that some had lost their passports up to four times in a year and some had violated a foreign country’s Immigration laws, such as by overstaying or abusing their travel visas.

But no worries.

They can still go oversea with permission from the Immigration Dept and the Official Assignee Office.

In the past, thousands of people like them went abroad.

Money? Still no problem! I was told that some rich people opted for a bankruptcy declaration from the court for 'good reasons'. Is it true?