INTERVIEW | IT solutions company Bestinet Sdn Bhd has no direct ties with any licensed recruitment agencies listed on its Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS), according to the company's chief executive officer Ismail Mohd Noor.
Ismail (above) said the number of listed agencies from sending countries, Bangladesh and Indonesia for example, will also be determined by both governments.
"It is the decision of the governments of Malaysia and Bangladesh.
"We don't deal directly with the agents, we don't have access to the agents," Ismail told Malaysiakini in an interview held at Bestinet's office in Cyberjaya.
Labour industry players in Malaysia and Bangladesh had previously implicated Bestinet in a "syndication" claim through the company's founder and director Aminul Islam Abdul Nor - a naturalised Malaysian said to have high-ranking connections within Putrajaya.
Many of the allegations were contained in an anonymous open letter and a cache of leaked documents believed to be from within Putrajaya, circulated to the media in February - about three months after both governments inked a new memorandum of understanding to reopen the labour market.
Last month, Bangladesh Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmed told Malaysiakini that bilateral discussions on objections to the number of recruitment agencies permitted to send their workers here had been at a standstill.
Ismail, however, maintained that Bestinet has no say in the selection of recruitment agencies from Bangladesh or other labour sending countries.
"Medical centres, yes, we have access because we accredit them. The agents we don't accredit.
"So long as they have a licence and the government says 'okay here are the agents we recognise'," he said.
Ismail explained that contrary to the syndication claims, Bestinet also played no role in influencing government policy on the number of recognised agencies.
"From Indonesia, the agents are unlimited because Malaysia recognises all of them.
"For Bangladesh, if both governments decide on 25, 100, 1,000, one million agents, we just put it up on our website," he said, adding that its system is capable of supporting any number of agents.
"We have a module called e-recruitment.
"Let's say I am an agent that wants to send workers to Malaysia, they just have to show evidence of registration with their Labour Department, and then we register them, give them their ID and password," he said.
Accredited medical centres
Overall, Ismail said FWCMS currently listed some 5,400 recruitment agencies from all 14 approved labour sending countries.
Another FWCMS component comprises its Bio-Medical module that includes accreditation of health facilities in sending countries to ensure screening procedures are in line with the Health Ministry’s requirements.
Ismail said the overall aim was to minimise situations where workers arrived in Malaysia only to fail their mandatory Foreign Workers Medical Examination (Fomema).
"Our accredited medical centres, what they have to comply with is one, they must have proper infrastructure including X-rays, laboratories, doctors and so on.
"You also have your doctors' licence registered with the country's government," he said.
Ismail said Bestinet's checks do not look beyond the required compliance measures, for instance, to verify claims of ties between the facilities and recruitment agencies, as part of the alleged syndicate.
"We don't ask 'are you a clinic or are you an agent?' We cannot go to that level, it is also not our job to do that," he said.
National Association of Malaysian Employment Agencies (Papsma) secretary-general N Sukumaran had claimed that there were unresolved issues surrounding Malaysia's selection of health facilities approved to carry out pre-departure screenings on Bangladeshi workers.
Sukumaran claimed there were among the 25 Bangladesh agents and 250 sub-agents who also owned accredited health facilities, raising questions over the standard of approved health screenings.
Malaysia has entered into new bilateral agreements with the governments of Bangladesh and Indonesia, but so far there have been no new arrivals of workers.
Earlier this month, Human Resources Minister M Saravanan revealed that less than 1 percent of applications for foreign workers received through FWCMS had been approved and Sukumaran said further delays on entries should be expected as the Bangladesh High Commission has yet to open its attestation process.
The reopening of Malaysia's economy and international borders after over two years of Covid-19 restrictions has seen many local industries struggling to resume normal operations due to a major labour shortage. - Mkini
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