Systemic rot of worker recruitment started during BN’s rule, says Kula

 

Former human resources minister M Kula Segaran said the PH government had imposed a moratorium on the intake of foreign workers from Bangladesh due to claims of forced labour. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Former human resources minister M Kula Segaran has rubbished his successor’s “outright lie” that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government ruined the country’s foreign worker system, stating that the “systemic rot” set in while Barisan Nasional was in power.

“(M) Saravanan has been a minister for over 31 months, but suddenly when the whole country complains about the shortage of foreign workers, he shamelessly shifts the blame to PH,” he said in a statement.

“I am not surprised (as) it is in the very grain of BN leaders not to be accountable.

“The nation’s foreign worker system was ruined by BN when they prioritised making money out of the recruitment of foreign workers. That systemic rot set in many years ago.”

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Kula claimed such practices had been maintained by the current BN leadership, citing the US’ Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report as proof.

Malaysia was placed on Tier 2 from 2018 to 2020 before dropping to Tier 3, the lowest tier, last year.

Among others, the report said the Malaysian government did not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and was not making significant efforts to do so.

It also said the government did not implement standard operating procedures to systematically identify trafficking victims, had weak inter-agency cooperation, and did not prosecute or convict government officials allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes.

“Many of our largest companies that export billions of ringgit worth of products, have been accused of forced labour because of these policies … The US has already imposed sanctions on these products and the European Union is expected to be next,” Kula said.

In an interview with The Vibes, Saravanan said that PH, and especially DAP leaders, caused the downfall of the foreign worker system during their 22 months in Putrajaya, adding that this led to the current manpower shortage.

The MIC deputy president said the PH government had imposed a moratorium on the intake of foreign workers from Bangladesh in September 2019 even before the Covid-19 pandemic started, adding that they then refused to renew memoranda of understanding with other source countries.

In response, Kula explained that the freeze was due to allegations of forced labour in the recruitment of foreign workers from Bangladesh.

“We wanted to stop the rot and the abuse of foreign workers that was happening due to BN policies,” said the Ipoh Barat MP.

“It was Perikatan Nasional and later BN which continued to impose a blanket moratorium on the intake of foreign workers from March 2020 to April 2022.

“Why didn’t he object to this?” - FMT