Saravanan promises one week approval for migrant workers
Speaking to Malaysiakini, Saravanan said there were no more outstanding issues with the recruitment of migrant workers from all 14 source countries...
Human Resources Minister M Saravanan has promised a one week approval time for employers applying to hire migrant workers through the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS).
Speaking to Malaysiakini, Saravanan said there were no more outstanding issues with the recruitment of migrant workers from all 14 source countries.
"Issues on recruitment of workers from 14 source countries have been resolved.
"Employers that require foreign workers, they can apply through the existing system that is the FWCMS and approvals will be given within one week," he said when contacted following the weekly cabinet meeting today.
"There is no more issue of shortage of workers or others," he added.
Malaysiakini understands the approval entails verification of the number of required workers based on individual applications submitted.
Asked whether the cabinet had deliberated on the number of Bangladesh recruitment agencies permitted to send their workers here, Saravanan said, "nothing to discuss".
"Things in Malaysia have been settled for a long time. At Malaysia's level, the memorandum of understanding was long settled.
"There's no issue at the cabinet level. Because the cabinet has decided, that's why I went to Bangladesh. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone," he added.
Monopoly and syndication
Saravanan, while leading Malaysia's delegation at the Joint Working Group meeting with Bangladesh's Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad last week, told journalists in Dhaka that the cabinet will make a final decision on the number of agencies authorised to send workers here.
He said this when quizzed by Bangladesh media on whether Malaysia will proceed to only allow 25 agencies accused of monopoly and syndication, amid a wider industry call from labour recruiters in both countries to open the market to more than 1,500 licensed agencies.
On Monday, Malaysiakini reported that a list of 24 licensed Bangladesh recruitment agencies has been removed from FWCMS since February until further notice, along with listings from all 13 other migrant source countries.
FWCMS operator, IT solutions provider Bestinet Sdn Bhd, said the list highlighted by several Bangladesh media was "no longer valid" pending a review from the Human Resources Ministry and respective embassies.
The initial list was said to include three agencies owned by sitting Bangladesh MPs and another run by the wife of a federal minister.
When contacted, National Association Of Private Employment Agencies Malaysia (Papsma) secretary-general Sukumaran Nair said that beyond speedy approvals, the government should resolve all issues that have so far prevented workers from coming into Malaysia, despite new bilateral agreements signed.
"There are employers with approvals from 2019 and 2020 but no workers were coming in," said Sukumaran, adding that there were further reported approvals of some 200,000 migrant workers.
Last week, Saravanan said the government had approved applications for some 200,000 migrant workers, mostly in "unpopular sectors" left vacant after over a year of being advertised on the ministry's My Future Job portal.
The minister has consistently defended Malaysia's right to limit the final number of authorised Bangladesh agencies, arguing that an open system prior to 2018 had led to an influx of Bangladesh migrant workers here.
