Sabah minister counters Tiong’s claim of no-show at MM2H meetings

PETALING JAYA: Sabah tourism minister Christina Liew has fired back at her federal counterpart, Tiong King Sing, as their tiff over the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme continues.

Sabah tourism, culture and environment minister Christina Liew denied skipping meetings hosted by the federal government on MM2H, saying she was never invited to them.

Liew added that she or her ministry officials had attended at least five tourism-related meetings at the federal level, some of which were chaired by Tiong himself.

“According to my ministry’s reports, none of the five meetings ever discussed the MM2H programme. We were never invited for any meeting to specifically discuss the programme,” she said, according to The Borneo Post.

The controversy began when the federal tourism ministry suspended the operations of all licensed agents handling MM2H applications, including those in Sabah.

This came at a time when Sabah was set to launch its own Sabah MM2H programme. The suspension of MM2H agents forced the state government to postpone the introduction of its own programme.

This prompted Liew to appeal to the federal ministry to reconsider its decision, which was rejected.

Nonetheless, the state minister said Sabah was adamant about going ahead with its programme and that it would consider appointing state representatives to handle applications independently.

On Saturday, Tiong accused Liew of not turning up for meetings despite “several invitations” to discuss the MM2H issue. He added that none of her representatives had attended on her behalf.

The federal tourism minister also claimed that Liew did not fully understand the ministry’s policy on MM2H agents.

He said the existing agents only needed to register themselves again with the ministry, adding that the move was to curb misconduct such as agents subleasing permits or cheating prospective clients.

After his announcement, Tiong came under fire from his Sarawakian counterpart, Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, who questioned the need to suspend operations of Bornean MM2H agents.