Hiring quota approvals not based on individual source countries
PARLIAMENT | The Human Resources Ministry's approvals for employers to hire migrant workers will be issued based on the approved sectors, rather than individual source countries.
Human Resources Minister M Saravanan (above) said all applications will be submitted online for approval to hire migrant workers from any of the 15 source counties...
PARLIAMENT | The Human Resources Ministry's approvals for employers to hire migrant workers will be issued based on the approved sectors, rather than individual source countries.
Human Resources Minister M Saravanan (above) said all applications will be submitted online for approval to hire migrant workers from any of the 15 source counties.
"Quota approvals are not based on a migrant worker's citizenship.
"After an employer received their quota approvals from the Human Resource Ministry to hire migrant workers, and after settling levy payments at the Immigration Department, they can then decide to hire from their chosen source country," Saravanan said during question time in Dewan Rakyat today.
He said this in response to Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid (Harapan-Kapar) who sought clarification on the ministry's rationale to purportedly approve applications to bring in 200,000 workers from Bangladesh.
"The information that I have approved 200,000 migrant workers from Bangladesh is untrue," said Saravanan.
He also reiterated that his ministry was not involved in an ongoing MACC probe against IT solutions provider Bestinet, operator of the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS).
"We are not involved in the probe," he said in response to a supplementary question from Tiong King Sing (GPS-Bintulu).
Bangladesh's The Business Post on July 6 reported that the MACC had questioned Bestinet's founder Mohd Amin Abdul Nor and several company officials, as well as the Bangladesh High Commission labour attaché Md Nazmus Sadat Salim.
The report claimed that Amin was questioned over his alleged close ties with Saravanan, in relation to processes surrounding the selection of 25 recruitment agencies said to be part of an alleged recruitment syndicate.
Bestinet had previously denied allegations of ties with any of the 25 Bangladesh recruitment agencies, as alleged by labour industry players in Malaysia and Bangladesh.
