MP SPEAKS | Are our ministers ignorant or feigning ignorance on foreign workers?

MP SPEAKS | It was reported on April 16, 2021, that Human Resources Minister M Saravanan was shocked and appalled by the action of the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur in launching its own job portal Chakrir Khoj to cater to its citizens in Malaysia.

I would like to say to Saravanan that he should be ashamed rather than be shocked and appalled. His ministry and the Home Ministry have failed miserably in handling the foreign workers issue in Malaysia. It is a vote of no confidence by the government of Bangladesh with regard to our government’s handling of this issue. It is a known fact and Malaysians are aware that our human resources minister and our home minister are incompetent in handling this problem. Many believe the Home Ministry may be the reason and source of this problem. Many believe issues are intentionally created to benefit some cronies and people with vested interests.

Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin has on April 19, 2021, stated that only 72,324 undocumented migrants have registered to return and another 73,506 individuals have registered to be legally reemployed under the Labour Recalibration Programme and the Return Recalibration Programme implemented since last November and will end in June 2021.

He was also quoted as saying “many (among the public) have the perception that there are many undocumented individuals in our country, but when we implement these new programmes, we realised that it was merely a perception”.

This is probably the most ridiculous quote of the year and it shows that he is sleeping on his job, or feigning ignorance at the scale of the problem. The Home Ministry makes it almost impossible for illegal or undocumented foreign workers to register under the Labour Recalibration Programme and now claim that there are very few illegal or undocumented foreign workers in the country!

The Home Ministry allows only two categories of illegal or undocumented foreign workers to be legalised.

(i) Employers are allowed to legalise foreign workers who are already under their employment.

(ii) New hirings may only be taken from the immigration depots.

It is impossible to legalise foreign workers under category (i) because if they are illegal or undocumented workers, how are their employers going to prove that they are already under their employment?

The Home Ministry requires those who intend to hire illegal immigrants under category (ii) to finance the repatriation of illegal immigrants being detained at these facilities on a one-to-one ratio, meaning to employ an employee legally from these depots, the employers have to finance the repatriation of another illegal immigrant back to his/her country.

The Home Ministry makes matters worse by insisting that the application to legalise these foreign workers can only be done through the office at Putrajaya.

I have received many complaints that employers have submitted their applications to legalise illegal or undocumented workers but to date, they have yet to receive any reply from the Home Ministry. It is not that there are only a few illegal or undocumented foreign workers in Malaysia but the Home Ministry makes it almost impossible to get them legalised and for those applications that have been submitted, the Home Ministry is sleeping on the job.

I hope the human resources minister and the home minister will wake up from their slumber and not continue to feign ignorance of the magnitude of the problem. They should face the problem head-on. If they are incompetent, they should resign gracefully.

NGEH KOO HAM is Beruas MP.

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