COMMENT | It is ironic that Dr Mahathir Mohamad's Pakatan Harapan is the one using propaganda saying that Malaysia has too many foreign workers.

Did you know that it was Mahathir himself who opened up the floodgates for foreign workers? Did you also know that he never once tried to reduce foreign workers in this 22 years in power?

During the boom years in the 1980s and 90s, Malaysia suffered from labour shortages. The country only had a workforce of eight million people. Many foreign companies complained there were not enough skilled workers.

In 1997, there were an estimated 1.8 million foreign workers in Malaysia. Of these, about 1.2 million were legal and about 800,000 illegal.

About three-fourths of the foreign labourers were from Indonesia. Others were from the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Pakistan, and Burma.

KLIA was designed by a foreign architect (from Japan) and built by foreign companies (mainly Japanese companies) using migrant labour from Indonesia and other countries.

KLCC was also designed by a foreign architect and built by foreign companies (mainly Japanese companies) using migrant labour from Indonesia and other countries.

Foreign workers and companies were the ones who built all the landmark projects of Mahathir.

The situation was inherited by Najib Abdul Razak's government, and he has had to solve or mitigate the situation in a manner that will not collapse our economy. It is no easy task to correct this particular legacy issue.

When the current government tried to freeze all intakes of foreign workers in early 2016, there was a huge outcry from the businesses asking the government to reconsider. DAP leaders even asked the government to lift the ban, saying it is hurting business.

What the BN government is now doing is that we have substantially increased the levies for all foreign workers based on sectors so that foreign workers will cost more to these companies in the hope that they will voluntarily reduce the hiring of foreign workers in favour of local workers.

Malaysians should remember that Mahathir is, in fact, the father of foreign workers in Malaysia.

Irony.

If Harapan is so against migrant workers, the states of Penang and Selangor should pass city ordinances to stop issuing operation licenses to businesses and factories that hire foreign workers.

So, why didn't they do this?

ERIC SEE-TO is BN strategic communication department deputy director.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.