'Is biometrics another political funding ploy?'

Prominent workers' rights NGO Tenaganita today questioned whether the BN-led government's sudden urge to introduce the biometric system for migrant workers is a ploy for political funding.

“The question arises whether the whole amnesty programme is a way to make money?

“Who will make the money and for what purpose?” Tenaganita executive director Irene Fernandez (right) asked at a press conference in Petaling Jaya.

Fernandez also questioned the identity and criteria for selection of the 300 approved biometrics registration agents, asking whether they were really qualified companies or otherwise.

She further related how in 2006, 200 companies were approved as outsourcing companies, despite many not even having an office.

“In the trial of the former director-general of immigration, Wahid Md Don, it was revealed that many of these companies contributed to political financing.

“There is speculation of an impending general election this year. Will history repeat itself?" asked the veteran activist.

Malaysian coordinator for the Nepal Labour Organisation, Kopila Goulam, who was also at the press conference related how several agencies claiming to be accredited biometrics resgistration agents even recruited sub-agents from among the foreign workers.

Kopila said the agencies then levied extra payments, above and beyond the government announced RM335 per legal foreign worker, in order to pay off their “sub-agents”.

As Fernandez later explained, these agencies had banners advertising their services even in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. She related that when the agencies were called up, they said that they charged up to RM1,500 in consultancy fees to handle foreign work registrations for employers.

'Biometrics won't address root causes'

Tenaganita posits that the questionable behaviour of the companies, and the mystery surrounding their appointments and the timing of the exercise being close to an impending general election, were good enough reasons to ask if the move was just a fund raising exercise of the ruling government.

Aside from the sudden introduction of biometric identification, Fernandez also questioned the effectiveness of the system as a solution to the burgeoning problem of undocumented foreign labour.

Biometrics, she argued, would only solve the problem of effective identification of foreign workers and not address the root causes that were causing the problems in the first place.

This is especially true as many of the undocumented workers are not those who entered the country illegally but legal foreign labours who were victims of fraud or mismanagement by their local employers.

Abdul Aziz Ismail, a committee member of the National Anti-Trafficking Task Force who was also at tghe Tenaganta press conference, said the fault lay with “bogus employers” and crooked agents who trafficked in and profited from foreign workers.

'No answer to human trafficking'

In most cases, both Aziz and Fernandez argued, the real culprits were the “bogus employers” and crooked agents who either did not renew the work permits of the legal workers or used false or fraudulent paperwork when bringing in foreign workers.

Fernandez also ticked off Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein for claiming that biometrics was one of the solutions for Malaysia's human trafficking woes.

“The biometric system will not wipe out human trafficking. Stop bluffing!” chided the Tenaganita executive director.

She further argued that the system would mostly help to identify victims of human trafficking, but would do little in going after those who actually engaged in and profited from the illicit activity.

Hishammuddin, she added, had yet to explain how he arrived at the conclusion and prove to the people how biometrics would actually help to solve human trafficking, beyond the swift identification of victims. - Malaysiakini