A labour activist has lodged a police report against three companies appointed under the previous BN administration that had allegedly failed to carry out a rehiring programme for undocumented migrant workers.
Selangor Anti-Human Trafficking Council member Abdul Aziz Ismail (photo, extreme right) urged the police to investigate and recover over RM2 billion allegedly collected from migrant workers who failed to be legalised in a rehiring programme carried out from February 2016 to June 2018.
"When their permit was not issued but money has been collected, that is a form of 'illegal gains' under the anti-money laundering law," Abdul Aziz told Malaysiakini.
Abdul Aziz said he also urged police to look into other alleged elements of human trafficking, labour exploitation and corruption linked to the case.
In his report lodged at the Petaling Jaya police station yesterday, Abdul Aziz cited reported figures of 744,942 irregular migrants who had registered for the rehiring exercise as of its final day on June 30, 2018.
From the figure, Abdul Aziz claimed that only 110,489 were issued fresh permits, while the remaining 415,791 irregular migrants failed to be legalised despite having made the necessary payments between RM922.52 and RM4513.86 to the three companies.
"I will also lodge a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission," he added.
In commemoration of International Migrants Day, last Dec 18, migrant rights group Tenaganita had cited similar figures for money collected from undocumented migrants.
Tenaganita director Joseph Paul Maliamauv at the time estimated there were approximately 700,000 undocumented migrants who had paid an average of RM5,000 each to the three companies between 2016 to 2018 but less than 200,000 of them had received their work permits.
He further cited an RM2.5 billion estimated collections from the remaining workers who failed to be legalised.
Tenaganita had urged the government to be accountable for the money as the three companies had carried out the rehiring programme on its behalf.
Implemented from Feb 16, 2016, the rehiring programme served as an avenue to provide undocumented workers with valid working permit to fulfil labour requirement for certain sectors, including manufacturing, construction, plantation, agriculture and services.
On June 1, 2018, then Immigration director-general Mustafar Ali had said that services of all three vendor companies - MyEG Services Sdn Bhd, Iman Resources Sdn Bhd and Bukti Megah Sdn Bhd - will be terminated at the end of the programme.
The Pakatan Harapan government subsequently launched it's own 'Back For Good' amnesty exercise up until midnight of Dec 31, last year, in another bid to reduce the number of undocumented migrant workers here.
A spokesperson from MyEG when contacted said that the company has complied with all procedures set by the Immigration Department.
"We confirm that MYEG has complied with all immigration procedures and directives in the past and are still following all immigration directives on this matter presently," said the spokesperson.
Attempts to reach Iman Resources and Bukti Megah are still underway as their websites and contact numbers available online were found to be either down or out of service. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.