The government has been taken to task for creating a migrant quota underworld that enables the proliferation of fake contracts and facilitates the recruitment of foreign workers with no real jobs available.
PSM Migrant Desk coordinator Rani Rasiah said the government was directly responsible for creating an underworld of fake contracts, quotas, and employers.
“The only thing real is the tragic migrant worker lured here with the promise of a non-existent job, incurring a debt that he cannot repay,” Rani (above) said.
Holding the government solely responsible for putting an end to the criminal activity, she said political will is needed to set the situation right.
“It’s entirely in the hands of the government to stop this crime once and for all,” she said.
Rani was responding to a Malaysiakini report that uncovered fake contracts purported to be worth millions of ringgit with non-existent companies that were used to get migrant quotas.
Malaysiakini’s investigations found hundreds upon hundreds of workers recruited under quotas obtained using fake contracts.
Last month, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail announced that the country was experiencing an oversupply of 120,000 migrant workers in the service sector alone.
However, he attributed the substantial oversupply to permit abuse.
Follow the 11th Malaysia Plan
As a solution that would halt the oversupply, Rani reiterated her call for the government to revisit its own guidelines on labour migration prescribed in the 11th Malaysia Plan, which had named the Human Resources Ministry as the sole ministry entrusted with migrant management.
Rani cited the same unfulfilled guidelines introduced in the country’s five-year development plan that was to be the last leg of Malaysia’s journey toward achieving Vision 2020, launched in 2016.
“The government should prioritise the implementation of a comprehensive policy on labour migration.
“The policy to regulate migrant worker recruitment should be based on actual needs determined by official surveys.
“And there are inputs readily available from experts and activists in the field,” she said.
Guidelines, recommendations aplenty
Malaysia is also not short of guidelines and recommendations on the management of migrant workers.
PSM deputy chairperson S Arutchelvan cited the 2019 report of the Independent Committee on the Management of Foreign Workers that was declassified last month and called on the government to implement its long overdue recommendations.
The 11-member independent committee was set up in 2018 under the first Pakatan Harapan government. It submitted its report to the cabinet in 2019, which classified it under the Official Secrets Act.
“The government needs to take the next step in implementing these long overdue recommendations on the streamlining of policies on foreign workers,” he said.
Arutchelvan said the findings in the Malaysiakini report were very alarming and raised serious concerns.
The report revealed that non-existent contracts - each accompanied by valid Inland Revenue Board (IRB) stamp duty certification - had not been checked by IRB, which maintained that it had no obligation to verify information provided by stamp duty certificate applicants.
Therein lies a significant regulatory loophole that allowed for exploitation, and the straightforward fraud seems to have gone unchecked by all parties, resulting in the success of getting migrant quota.
The lure of income from quota fraud has many prongs but at least two are known through interviews with insiders and defrauded workers.
The quota bearer could sell the quotas to other companies or agents, or sell or rent out the workers who had arrived via the trafficking scheme.
Arulchelvan called on the police’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department and the MACC to form a special task force to tackle the scandal immediately.
“If Malaysiakini through investigative journalism can do so much, I am sure the authorities with enforcement powers can do much more,” he said. - Mkini
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