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IPOH – The Home Ministry will investigate allegations that some employers are tipping off the Immigration Department about their own foreign workers who do not have valid documents to avoid settling their wages.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said the ministry will investigate all aspects of the issue to ensure justice for all parties concerned.
“We cannot simply blame employers for allegedly lodging reports. Before conducting raids and operations, we conduct investigations with strategies to ensure that employers abide by the law.
“It is the same with temporary work pass (PLKS) holders regarding levy payment. If anything happens, we will investigate the workers, including to determine if they have been paid their wages, where they were employed and who hired them.
“And, we will claim (unpaid wages) on their behalf. All this will be done to ensure justice is served to all parties,” he said after attending a Malaysia Prihatin programme at Dewan Serbaguna Bandar Baru Tambun here today.
He was commenting on claims that some employers are lodging reports with the Immigration Department on undocumented foreign workers at building sites to avoid paying them the wages due to them upon completion of a project.
Yesterday, after the Immigration Department arrested a number of illegal immigrants at a construction site in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, some quarters, including netizens, claimed the raids are the result of tip-offs by the employers.
On another matter, Hamzah said industry players had made 40,000 requests to bring in foreign workers for the plantation sector.
However, the government needed to make further studies on the standard operating procedure (SOP) involving vaccination, quarantine and accommodation before allowing the recruitment of foreign workers in the sector, he said.
“If we want to allow them to enter, we have to determine who will pay for the costs of Covid-19 tests, 14-day quarantine and whether employers have adequate facilities to house those cleared to work.”
It has been reported that the recruitment of foreign workers in the plantation industry has been frozen due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali had said that the plantation sector is still short of more than 500,000 workers, despite having 220,00 locals and 265,397 foreigners registered as workers. – Bernama, April 9, 2021
