Kula: Squeeze on ‘traditional Indian’ businesses must end

 

Former human resources minister M Kulasegaran has hit out strongly against the plan to terminate Temporary Work Visit Passes for foreign workers.

“It is disheartening that nothing has changed.

“About 10,000 Indian businesses from three sectors - textile, goldsmith, and barber shops - may be forced to cease operations as the visit passes for temporary employment for its remaining foreign workers will be terminated in stages,” said Kulasegaran in a statement today.

The Ipoh Barat MP said that this was the case during the first Pakatan Harapan administration when then Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin refused to budge on the matter.

“I was a minister then and I can attest that despite my pushing of the matter and wanting to review the matter, there was not much progress with him.

“But just before the collapse of the Harapan government, some real changes were supposed to take place.

“I would hope that the new home minister and prime minister would not ‘punish’ these Indian businesses after opening the intake of foreign workers for many other sectors,” said Kulasegaran (above).

‘Unfreeze ban immediately’

He went on to question if sectors that are predominately owned by Indians are being targeted by this policy.

“The home minister and human resources minister are co-chairs of the committee on foreign workers.

“This committee was formed some 10 years ago by the cabinet then.

“Thus, I call upon Human Resources Minister V Sivakumar and Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to convene immediately the common committee and unfreeze the policy to ban the intake of foreign workers in the textile, goldsmith, and barber sectors,” said Kulasegaran.

He further urged the government to provide special training for Malaysians to upskill, reskill, and upskill in these three sectors.

“The earlier this is done, the earlier we can reduce dependence on foreign workers.

“We have only a 26 percent skilled total workforce as compared to Singapore’s 60 percent,” he claimed.

“We can always phase out foreign workers in these three sectors if we can train Malaysians and encourage them to work in these sectors. The reality is they do not want to work in these sectors currently, which is why foreign workers are needed,” he added.

He said that the freeze, which started in 2009, was most unreasonable, unfair, and discriminatory.

Earlier this week the Malaysian Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry asked the Malaysian Immigration Department to review the decision to phase out the Temporary Work visit Passes in several sub-sectors related to the community’s traditional businesses.

Its president N Gobalakrishnan said immigration’s decision to end the temporary pass to employ foreign workers, starting March 15 in stages, for the textile, goldsmith, and barber sub-sectors needs to be reviewed.

“This is a surprising decision and does not reflect the actual situation of the three industries. It further complicates the situation,” he said. - Mkini