KUALA LUMPUR – It was the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration that ruined the country’s migrant workers system, not the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, said DAP’s Ipoh Barat MP M. Kula Segaran.
This was said in response to Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan, who criticised the PH government for imposing a moratorium on the intake of migrant workers from Bangladesh in September 2019, and for refusing to renew memoranda of understanding with other source countries.
“The nation’s migrant workers system was ruined by BN when they prioritised making money out of the recruitment of migrant workers,” said Kulasegaran, who was human resources minister himself in the PH government, which lasted 22 months till February 2020.
“That systemic rot set in many years ago. This has been continued by the current BN leadership which is why after PH’s rule, Malaysia has remained at Tier 3, which is the lowest tier, of the US’ Trafficking in Persons report.”
He said that many of Malaysia’s largest companies that export billions of ringgit worth of products have been accused of forced labour because of the policies by “money-hungry leaders”.
“America has already imposed sanctions on these products and news is that the European Union is next,” he said.
Taking aim at PH for minimising the entry of Bangladeshi workers during its time in power, Saravanan had said measures to improve the situation were undertaken by the current BN government when the country reopened its borders after the pandemic on April 1.
The MIC vice-president and Tapah MP had said that from April this year to date, all related MoUs had been resolved with source countries, while the issuance of quotas for all relevant agencies and stakeholders had already been expedited.
In a statement today, Kula Segaran said that as minister he had initiated a transparent Special Independent Committee on Foreign Worker Management headed by former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Yunus.
The committee was sanctioned by the cabinet to study the “horrible” state of Malaysian recruitment of migrant workers, he said.
“This led to the publishing of a comprehensive report, which included 40 recommendations that I presented to the cabinet for deliberation. There was even a special sitting of the cabinet just to discuss migrant workers’ issues,” he said.
“Thereafter, the cabinet set up a committee headed by the chief secretary to the government to suggest how the recommendations/proposal should be implemented.
“Among the core recommendations of the independent committee were the establishment of the Human Resources Ministry as the single authority for the management of all migrant workers,” he stressed.
Kula Segaran also claimed that PH had at that time not stopped workers from going to their home countries and returning to work in Malaysia. Also, the intake of workers from countries like Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia, and Indonesia never stopped, he added.
He said that Saravanan had “bitten more than he can chew” when he challenged DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng to come to the ministry and bring evidence that the former had failed to handle the current acute shortage of labour.
Lim today expressed his readiness to take up Saravanan’s invitation, saying he will attend the briefing with Beruas MP Ngeh Koo Ham at the Human Resources Ministry in Putrajaya on October 5. – The Vibes, September 28, 2022
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