Illogical to equate MyEG with race, says Teresa

Teresa Kok criticises Wee Ka Siong for injecting the “fear factor” of race when trying to justify the need for the centralised system of MyEG.

KUALA LUMPUR: DAP’s Teresa Kok slammed minister Wee Ka Siong for putting the setting-up of MyEG into a racial context, when he claimed the system was crucial in monitoring the number of foreign workers in the country that had already exceeded the Indian population and would exceed the Chinese too if left unchecked.

Accusing the minister of resorting to fear as a means of gaining the public’s acceptance of the system, Teresa, who is DAP’s National Vice- Chairperson asked, “Was he trying to justify the outsourcing of the permit renewal which has met massive criticisms with the ‘fear factor’, that is, the number of foreign workers in the country can outweigh the Chinese community?”

Describing his remarks as “most puzzling and illogical”, Teresa, who is also MP for Seputeh, expressed her disappointment that Wee had resorted to the race issue in furthering his argument and said that it did not even make sense since the Home Ministry had never brought up the issue before.

“The Home Ministry did not mention the reason mentioned by Wee. So why did Wee suddenly come up with his own new explanation?,” she asked, explaining that the Home Ministry wanted to check abuse by various parties and to shorten the application process to one or two days compared to two to four weeks. MyEG was also meant to reduce crowding at the Immigration Department’s counters, she explained.

Pointing out that both Wee and the Home Ministry were saying differing things, she said, “Wee must therefore explain his motive for coming up with such a new reason for implementing online renewal via MyEG.”

Criticising Wee for failing to understand the concerns of employers, who were still hoping the counters would remain permanently re-opened, Teresa said Wee should be a voice for the disgruntled employers, instead of championing MyEG.

Yesterday, Wee, who is Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department was quoted by ChinaPress Daily as saying that utilising MyEG to renew the permits of foreign workers would allow the government to effectively monitor their movements whether coming into or leaving the country, pointing out their numbers already exceeded that of Indians and could overtake the Chinese population too unless controlled.