COMMENT | Is Putrajaya dismantling migrant worker syndicate or inadvertently helping it thrive?

COMMENT | The Human Resources Ministry tells us it has just chalked up a “success”.

In a video uploaded to its official Facebook page, the ministry showcased how Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had directed Human Resources Minister R Ramanan to review and streamline the entire migrant worker employment process.

The result, according to the ministry, is a fully digitalised One Stop Centre (OSC), now under the ministry’s purview, complete with online conditional approval letters. No more employers queuing at government counters.

It sounds progressive. It sounds transparent. But turn the page, and the story is different.

The list of recruitment agencies brought into this new system includes only 25 companies from Bangladesh, 10 from Myanmar, 10 from Pakistan, 10 from India and 25 from Nepal, even though thousands of legitimately registered agencies exist in these source countries.

This may not necessarily amount to the dismantling of the existing system, but rather its restructuring under a new framework with official government oversight.

And the quota being opened is not insignificant - 15,000 migrant workers for the restaurant industry, as announced by Anwar on July 24. The ministry says 5,000 of these, involving 1,033 employers who have gone through interview sessions, are now being processed.

With a quota of this size, the need for transparency becomes all the more important, particularly in ensuring that the agencies entrusted with facilitating the flow of workers are selected through a clear and accountable process, rather than leaving source countries with only a limited list of names without a fuller explanation of how those agencies were chosen.

Nepal rebels and the list mysteriously expands

Nepal didn't stay silent. As soon as the ministry listed 25 Nepali agencies as "Registered Recruitment Agencies", accusations of monopoly erupted.

The Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (Nafea) claimed the arrangement gave exclusive access to only a handful of companies, while sidelining thousands of other legitimate agencies. The association went further, suspending the membership of the 25 companies involved and demanding the government take action against them for refusing to cooperate with industry-wide pressure.

That pressure was so intense that all 25 companies involved were forced into a written commitment to withdraw from the system.

The Nepali government also acted diplomatically, summoning Malaysia's Chargé d'Affaires and acting ambassador to Nepal, Firdaus Azman (below), for an explanation.

It also lodged an official protest through its Foreign Ministry, demanding that bilateral labour migration matters proceed only through a Joint Technical Committee, and not a unilateral list published by Malaysia.

This is where the latest development needs to be assessed fairly.

According to Nepali news outlet Capital Nepal, following pressure, the Malaysian Human Resources Ministry reportedly expanded its list from 25 to 250 recruitment companies, with 10 additional companies added under each of the original 25 parent companies.

These sub-agencies are now referred to as “associate recruitment agencies”.

Interestingly, some businesses that had earlier participated in the protests were also reported to have appeared on the expanded list. This has left some traders questioning whether the move represents a substantive resolution to their concerns, or a restructuring of the existing arrangement.

The more important question: are these 225 additional companies genuinely independent agencies able to process worker applications directly, or are they merely operating as sub-agents under the grip of the same 25 parent companies? Does this mean the original control structure remains intact, just with more names on the surface?

On the ground, this distrust isn't new.

At Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, random checks by Nepal's Immigration Department on citizens heading specifically to Malaysia have become routine, with the common question: Did they pay money to a cartel to get a job in Malaysia?

That pressure has forced cartel networks in Nepal to shift tactics - first sending subjects who have paid tens of thousands of ringgit to Lucknow Airport in India before flying them to Malaysia.

This is not a sign of a cleaner system. It is a sign of a syndicate getting better at evading detection.

Bangladesh is also pushing back

It's not just Nepal. According to the latest official statement from Bangladesh's Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry, the Malaysian government has agreed to approve 338 recruiting agencies comprising 25 principal agencies, 312 associate agencies, and the government agency Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited.

The statement, dated Aug 28, claims this vetting was carried out transparently through a high-level joint committee involving several Malaysian ministries and anti-corruption bodies.

Top-level talks between Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman (below, left) and Anwar also produced a commitment of 10,000 worker quotas at zero cost.

But the reality on the ground tells a different story.

Major questions have arisen within the industry about the actual role of those 312 associate agencies: whether they genuinely have the authority to process worker requests independently, or are merely operating as sub-agents under the grip of the 25 principal agencies.

Structurally, this pattern is not far removed from what is happening in Nepal with the addition of 225 new companies.

Why did the Malaysian government, through the Human Resources Ministry, agree to designate 312 agencies as "associates" rather than principal agents?

Without full transparency and direct approval for all legitimate agencies, this move is feared to merely restructure the old syndicate's operations under a new digital brand.

Meanwhile, in a joint statement, four associations from Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan have urged the Malaysian government, along with authorities in all four source countries, to come forward with an official, transparent explanation regarding the legal basis, eligibility criteria, and scope of authority of the operators of this system in Malaysia.

"On that basis, this critical sector should not be allowed to be dominated or commercialised by any private entity through a limited-access scheme," they stressed.

Has anything changed?

And here is the latest, and perhaps most intriguing, chapter in the story.

On Sept 22, the Prime Minister’s Office posted on Facebook confirming Anwar (below) had spoken with Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah about the recruitment of Nepali workers to Malaysia, specifically the role of agents.

Both leaders reportedly agreed the process must be cleared of exploitation and unreasonable charges, and that Malaysia's human resources minister would soon meet his Nepali counterpart to find the "best solution."

The statement from Nepal's PMO carried a sharper tone.

It stated that the Nepali PM explicitly told Anwar that syndicate and middleperson practices in Malaysia's employment sector were unacceptable to him and his government, and demanded a permanent solution through joint effort.

Anwar, the statement said, also affirmed that he himself opposes syndicates and middlepersons, and pledged to instruct his human resources minister to coordinate immediately with Nepal's labour minister.

The question is: how many times have we heard Putrajaya "oppose syndicates" while simultaneously allowing a system that, structurally, resembles a syndicate itself?

This prime-ministerial-level phone call came after Nafea suspended the membership of 25 companies, after the Nepali government summoned Malaysia's envoy for an explanation, and after the list mysteriously grew from 25 to 250 names.

This appears less like a proactive government crackdown on the alleged syndicate and more like a response that came after diplomatic pressure was brought to bear.

Nepal's labour minister goes further

The diplomatic pressure didn't stop at the Anwar-Shah phone call. Two days later, it escalated.

On Thursday, Nepal's Youth, Employment and Social Security Minister Ramji Yadav held his own phone call with Ramanan (below) and went further than Kathmandu's earlier protests.

Yadav didn't just object to the expanded 25-plus-250 list; he asked Malaysia to scrap the tiered structure altogether and list every manpower company licensed in Nepal under the Malaysian government system.

His argument was that restricting the list to a select set of "main" and "associate" agencies runs against Nepal's own foreign employment law, which requires that licensed agencies be allowed to send workers free of charge and without discrimination.

Ramanan's response focused on dialogue, safety, and transparency.

He described relations between the two governments as cordial and said Nepal's concerns were being taken up seriously.

He also posted separately on social media that both sides had agreed to keep talking through official channels, and framed Malaysia's position as one built around worker safety, support for employers, and preventing exploitation without committing to Yadav's actual demand of opening the list to all licensed agencies.

Taken together, the sequence now reads that Nepal's industry body suspends 25 companies, then Kathmandu summons Malaysia's envoy, then the list mysteriously grows from 25 to 250.

Anwar and Nepal's PM speak, and Nepal's labour minister escalates the demand to all licensed agencies, not just a bigger version of the same shortlist.

Each step has produced warmer words from Putrajaya, but no sign that the underlying gatekeeping structure a small set of "principal" agencies with everyone else funnelled in as "associates" is actually being dismantled.

'We’ve been through this before'

History doesn't need to be dug up from far back.

The Bangladesh Recruitment Agency (BRA) scheme, established under a bilateral memorandum of understanding in December 2021, also began with the same justification: restructuring worker recruitment, reducing smuggling and exploitation.

The result was that more than 480,000 Bangladeshi workers entered Malaysia through just 103 selected agencies between 2022 and 2024.

According to a police report filed by a Bangladeshi businessperson, many workers were trapped in debt after paying up to RM25,000 each in recruitment fees.

The case is now before the Dhaka High Court, where 51 private recruitment agencies, along with several former Bangladeshi ministers and MPs, including former expatriate welfare minister Imran Ahmed (below), have been charged with criminal breach of trust, fraud, criminal intimidation and large-scale extortion under the Penal Code of 1860.

The Human Resources Ministry initially allowed only 25 agencies back then before expanding to 250 sub-agencies, and ultimately, only 103 agencies were actually selected.

Is the ministry now simply repeating the same modus operandi in both Bangladesh and Nepal, with 25 agencies growing into hundreds of sub-agencies?

More concerning, however, is the allegation that the ministry sent a letter to the Bangladeshi authorities on April 23, 2025, requesting that the investigation into the alleged syndicate be halted to ensure the migrant worker recruitment process could proceed smoothly.

The letter reportedly argued that most of the allegations involving human trafficking and money laundering were unfounded, while expressing concern that the investigation could affect Malaysia’s standing in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report ranking.

Malaysia sits at Tier 2.

This shows that the ministry did not support a full investigation but instead asked for it to be halted immediately, even though the original complainant alleged he paid up to BDT12.56 crore (about RM51 million) to process 841 workers over 18 months, including additional payments far exceeding the official rates set by both governments.

What needs to change

The digitalisation of the application process under the Human Resources Ministry is indeed a positive step for governance and administrative efficiency.

The expansion of Nepal's agency list from 25 to 250 should be seen as a response to legitimate protest, not simply dismissed. Even the Anwar-Shah phone call on Sept 22, and Yadav's follow-up call two days later, look, on paper, like diplomatic progress.

But an efficient system and a growing list of names mean nothing if the real structure behind it who controls whom, and on what basis an agency (or "associate" sub-agency) is selected continues to go undisclosed.

Transparency isn't just about how many companies are listed, but whether that expansion gives genuine authority to those agencies, or merely adds a new layer to the same network.

If the ministry genuinely wants to prevent the resurgence of a syndicate like the 103 BRA agencies, the first step is not to add criteria most legitimate agencies cannot possibly meet, or to quietly expand the list without explaining the criteria.

It must open the selection process to independent scrutiny and public pressure before it once again triggers an official protest from a foreign government at Malaysia's embassy doorstep, or, as with Yadav's latest call, a demand to abandon the tiered list altogether.

Nepal has already shown what happens when a source country loses confidence, and what happens when a government tries to fix the situation without full disclosure.

Bangladesh has already shown what happens when a syndicate is allowed to take root for years, to the point where former ministers are charged in court.

The question now is: after yet another ministerial phone call and sweet promises of a "best solution", how many more countries, and how many more workers trapped in debt, need to exist before Putrajaya stops rebuilding the same syndicate structure just under a new digital brand?

B NANTHA KUMAR is a member of the Malaysiakini team.

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