Lim: Lure local talents back

The federal government should take pro-active steps to reduce the number of foreign workers and lure back Malaysian talents from abroad for the country to gain substantially from their experience and knowledge.

According to Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, that would be a progressive booster to the current economic downturn.

By discouraging foreign workers, he said the government could also save billions in the outflow of the country's foreign currency exchange funds as well.

Lim said today that the government could easily replace foreign workers with Malaysians abroad, who possess so much skilled expertise, technical knowledge and working experience.

Critical of the government policy in allowing local employers hiring foreign workers in various sectors when it can do away with it, the chief minister accused the government of not doing much to stop brain drain from the country either.

A wrong policy

"Our local talents are being tapped by foreign country when we could have employed them here," he said, questioning the rationale to hire so many foreign workers, especially expatriates, at the expense of local talents.

Lim pointed out that it was a wrong policy to hire foreigners while allowing brain drain among our own local pool of skilled manpower to foreign countries, and stressed that the federal government's human resources policy should emphasise on home grown talents.

"Why should we train foreign workers in our working environment when we are not gaining much from them?" asked Lim pointing out that it would be their respective countries to gain eventually from their experience working in Malaysia.

According to official government statistics, the country has some 2.1 million foreign workers, who would collectively send back about RM18.1 billion this year to their home countries.

The sum amounts to 4.7 per cent of the country's foreign reserve fund.

Last year the foreign workers sent back some RM17.2 billion.

Refuting the government statistics as 'flawed', Lim claimed that the number of foreign workers would easily be 4.5 million foreign workers, including illegal immigrants.

"Sabah itself easily has two million foreigners," he said, adding that many would concur with his claim.

RM48b financial package

He said that based on his information, foreign workers are expected to send back home between RM36 billion and RM40 billion, which amounted to 10 per cent of the foreign reserve.

"That's a huge sum of money draining out from our country to foreign lands," he said, suggesting the government find a way to encourage foreigners to re-channel their earnings back to the country.

"The money can be used to upturn the nation's growth and implement people-orientated projects," he said, noting that Penang needs RM1 billion in federal funds to carry out the state's comprehensive flood mitigation project.

Lim also called on the Putrajaya administration to execute a RM48 billion financial aid package to benefit citizens across the country to boost the flagging market.

He suggested the government to hand out direct cash aid of RM6,000 annually to each household with monthly income of RM6,000 and below, which could cost some RM35 billion.

He also wants the government to reduce company tax from current 25 per cent to 17 per cent that would deduct the country's coffer by RM13 billion.

However, he said the financial assistance would increase the financial capacity of Malaysians, their purchasing power and inject the much needed consumer funds to turn around the economy.

"It will definitely be a booster," Lim added confidently.