Several quarters in Sarawak have expressed deep concern over the presence of some 300,000 illegal Indonesian workers in oil palm plantations in the state, as revealed by the Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.

“I am both worried and greatly perplexed by this statement from the deputy minister, for it amounts to an admission that both the Sarawak and federal governments do not have the skills and the resources to deal with this problem,” Sarawak PKR vice-chairperson Boniface Willy Tumek said.

Firstly, Boniface said, there appeared to be some kind of agreement between the Indonesian authorities and Sarawak authorities on the illegal Indonesian workers, who now number around 300,000 in the Sarawak oil palm plantations .

This number is certainly much higher than the population of some of the ethnic groups in Sarawak, he said.

The Bidayuh community in the state, for example, numbered slightly more than 200,000.The Kayan, the Kenyah, the Lun Bawang and the Kelabit communities were even smaller, Boniface told Malaysiakini yesterday when commenting on Wan Junaidi’s statement.

Wan Junaidi ( left ) had told reporters that one reason for the presence of some 300,000 illegal Indonesian workers in plantations was the breaching of buffer zones between Sarawak and Indonesian Kalimantan by the oil palm plantations.

“Our buffer zones at the border areas have been breached by the oil palm plantations and there is nothing we can do about it.

“Now the so-called ‘jalan tikus’ (secret jungle paths) have become ‘jalan gajah’ (big roads),  thus allowing people to cross the border without needing travel passes,” the deputy minister was quoted as saying.

The border areas most affected by the breaching of the buffer zones are in Bau, Serian, Lubok Antu, Ulu Rajang and Lawas.

Wan Junaidi said that there was a suggestion to build a security fence along the 2,000km-long border with Kalimantan, but the idea was dropped due to the expensive cost of the construction and also because the agreement of the Indonesian government was required.

Locals lose out on job opportunities

Asked to comment on the statement, Boniface said the local people were worried for several reasons. Firstly, the numbers of Indonesian workers in Sarawak, legal and illegal, represented the numbers of job opportunities lost by Sarawakians.

Secondly, these illegals were also the cause of economic losses to the locals, he said, pointing out that very recently, foreigners were detected catching ‘bubuk’ (small prawns) in the waters off Miri.

“The huge presence of foreign workers from Indonesia too has become a drain on the resources of the government.

“The Sarawak government, following policies of the federal government, will soon be building schools to cater for Indonesians, and  at the very same time our own education sector is crying for more funds to put right the huge number dilapidated schools in Sarawak,” Boniface ( right ) lamented.

He said many of these workers were in Sarawak with their spouses and children, putting extra demands on the state health and medical services and facilities.

Going by Wan Junaidi’s statement, it looked like the situation is not going to get better anytime soon, he said.

A former police officer, John Suahara, said he was concerned that the illegal workers could also be carrying diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, as they were not medically checked when they crossed over to Sarawak.

Several cases of malaria in Simunjan district

“I heard several cases of malaria reported in the past few years in Simunjan district, where there are a large number of illegal workers employed in the plantations,” John said, and questioned why the authorities had not taken any action and allowed the situation to become unmanageable.

John said that the authorities should not allow the illegal immigration problems faced in Sabah to rear such ugly heads in Sarawak.

Meanwhile, former district officer and currently Serian DAP division chairperson Edward Andrew Luak called on the Sarawak government to reduce the levy charges on foreign workers.

“We are supposed to be autonomous in immigration and recruitment of labour force and we should therefore impose our own levy charges, not adopt the levy charges imposed by the federal government.

“The amount should be reduced as the workers are not able to pay high levy charges,” Edward said.

Currently, the levy charges per worker per year are: plantation workers – RM590; agricultural workers – RM410; welfare home workers – RM650; Restaurant and coffee shop workers – RM1,010; first domestic maids – RM410; second domestic maids – RM590; resort workers – RM1,490 and construction and manufacturing workers – RM1,010.

Edward believes a reduction of the levy charges could be the solution to these illegal workers coming to Sarawak.

As Sarawak needed foreign workers badly, the reduction of the levy would benefit both Sarawak as well as the foreign workers, he added.