The six measure programme or 6P as it is known to register illegal foreign workers which started simultaneously in Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak yesterday went smoothly except for some glitches in outsourced companies.

Immigration director-general Alias Ahmad said the problems arose when a number of the 336 private companies appointed by the government for the purpose could not access the Immigration department's computer system.

He said today's delays were unavoidable because the department did not have sufficient staff to assist all the private companies' counters.

"Registration at Immigration is going smoothly and we expect to resolve the private companies' problems by this evening,' he said last night.

Meanwhile, Home Affairs deputy senior secretary-general (policy and immigration) Alwi Ibrahim said in a statement here that all 198 immigration offices nationwide will operate 24 hours from Monday until Aug 14 to ensure the exercise was completed smoothly.

A total of 1,639 counters have been opened by the 336 appointed companies and 111 more will be added soon, he said.

Alwi said details of all the locations may be obtained at it website .

The 6P programme is aimed at gathering data on illegal immigrants to overcome social and crime issues.

Meanwhile, Construction Labour Exchange Centre Bhd (CLAB) chief executive officer Azlan Mohd Isa said CLAB, one of the outsourced entities to do the registration, was not able to function today because of unavailability of immigration officers to assist in accessing the immigration department's computer system but expected the problem to be resolved soon.

The six measures are registration, legalisation, amnesty, monitoring, enforcement and deportation.

- Bernama