Longer work permits: Happier planters, sadder Sabahans

The federal government has done away with its 'discriminatory' policy involving foreign workers in the plantation sector.

KOTA KINABALU: The federal government has standardised its policy involving foreign workers in the plantation sector.

It has also doubled the duration of the worker permits for foreigners in the plantation sector.

As of last month, both smallholders and big plantations can hire foreign labour on a long-term basis.

Prior to this, the policy favoured only big plantations in the state and workers who completed their five-year contract were sent back.

Revealing the change in policy, Deputy Home Minister Lee Chee Leong said the new 10-year work permit, which is split into two and known as the “5+5 years” renewal of work pass, applied to all plantations irrespective of size.

Lee said this in the Dewan Rakyat recently in response to a question raised by Tawau MP Chua Soon Bui.

Chua had asked for the rationale behind the ministry’s double standard in implementing its policy on work pass renewal for foreign workers in the plantation sector.

Chua, who is also Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) vice-president, said she had been receiving complaints from smallholders in the east coast of Sabah, who questioned the discriminatory policy.

Smallholders in the oil palm sector said the discriminatory policy would make their farming practice uneconomical.

While the decision may put a smile on the faces of those in the business sector, ordinary Sabahans are grumbling that the employment situation in the state has been set back.

Expectations have been high that cheap labour from Indonesia and the Philippines would be phased out in favour of higher salaries to attract locals into the industry.

But the latest move appears to have put a dent to this aspiration.