Govt to proceed with terms of existing labour MOUs with source countries

PARLIAMENT | The government will proceed with recruitment terms agreed upon with migrant workers’ source countries to fulfil urgent demands from employers faced with an ongoing labour shortage.

Human Resources Minister V Sivakumar (above) said so far there are no plans to review existing agreements, including from Indonesia and Bangladesh as the top two source countries for migrant labour here.

"For the time being, no. Nothing. We will continue with whatever MOU we have signed so far," Sivakumar told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

The previous Pakatan Harapan administration in 2018 had suspended recruitments from Bangladesh, while the Indonesian government imposed a moratorium on sending new workers following cases of abuse.

Bilateral negotiations to reopen the labour market from Bangladesh and Indonesia started during Harapan's first stint in Putrajaya, and were later concluded by Sivakumar's predecessor, M Saravanan amid border restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Concerns over terms of the agreements that stakeholders argued contributed to forced labour elements - particularly for recruitments from Bangladesh and Indonesia - had delayed new entries despite urgent demands to fill vacancies after borders reopened.

"There are many complaints we received on applications done much earlier but they still haven't got workers.

"This is jeopardising our country and affecting our economy," said Sivakumar.

"There are some changes that will be announced soon. We're working very closely with Home Ministry to find solutions on how we can expedite the process.

"We hope that the new set-up will be faster than before. Details I will announce very soon after we have finalised how to set it up," said the Batu Gajah MP.

On Dec 9, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the Immigration Department has approved 374,000 of 404,000 applications for Visa with Reference received this year up to Dec 4 from employers looking to hire migrant workers.

Of the approved figures, Saifuddin said only 68 percent of the workers, or over 250,000, have been brought in to work.

Part of the delays was attributed to issues in source countries as well as management of their entries here that eventually saw an MACC probe into alleged irregularities in the selection of 25 Bangladesh recruitment agencies authorised by Malaysia.

Quizzed on updates surrounding the probe, Sivakumar said he has no information on the matter.

"Now I'm not prepared to comment about that. Let me do a study and investigation before commenting," he said.

'Requests for refugees to work'

Further, Sivakumar said there has been no progress in discussions surrounding proposals to grant refugees here the right to work and fulfil demands for migrant labours.

"So far there have been demands. I had meetings with some market players in my office, and they came and made these suggestions.

"But we have not come up with any decisions yet," he said.

As for the local workforce, Sivakumar said they can look forward to better working conditions through enforcement of amendments passed to the Employment Act 1955 beginning Jan 1 next year.

He said the changes include an increase in the number of maternity and paternity leave, as well as flexible working hours.

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