Suspend yourself for 2 weeks instead, Guan Eng tells Saravanan

 

Lim Guan Eng said the freeze would impose unnecessary hardship on businesses that were already struggling due to the pandemic.

PETALING JAYA: DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng has slammed the human resources ministry for its decision to halt foreign worker applications for another two weeks from tomorrow to Aug 31.

The previous two-week suspension was from June 1 to June 15.

Lim said the decision made no sense given that the temporary freeze on Indonesian workers entering Malaysia was recently lifted.

“It is better for human resources minister M Saravanan to suspend himself and his officials for two weeks instead of imposing unnecessary hardship on businesses,” he said in a statement.

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On July 13, Indonesian ambassador Hermono said Jakarta had imposed a temporary freeze on all Indonesian workers entering Malaysia following a dispute over the system used for the recruitment of Indonesian maids.

Later, however, Saravanan said Indonesia had agreed to rescind the temporary freeze, which the minister previously said was merely a “temporary postponement”.

“Barely two weeks after the Indonesian worker situation was normalised on Aug 1, the recruitment of all migrant workers is now inexplicably suspended for two weeks beginning Aug 15.

“This would hinder efforts by all industries to overcome the 1.2 million worker shortage and the resulting losses of RM33.5 billion to the plantation sector, glove, and automotive spare parts industry alone.”

Earlier this month, the human resources ministry announced that foreign worker applications would be suspended in order to revise the application process.

The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) then called for the current application process to be maintained as any suspension would be disruptive to economic recovery and to industries in need of workers.

The Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Owners Association (Presma) also weighed in, saying that some 1,500 Indian-Muslim restaurants, or “mamak” restaurants, were expected to close nationwide because of the lack of workers.

Lim said there was no reason for the current application process to be suspended as there remained a serious need to overcome the severe labour shortage.

“Saravanan should wake up and do his job by allowing applications for the recruitment of migrant workers to continue,” he said. “He should instead focus on cutting the red tape on the many applications that are pending approval.” - FMT