KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Consortium of Mid-Tier Companies (MCMTC) has backed the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers' (FMM) call for a single agency to handle the entire foreign worker employment process to ensure clarity, transparency and greater efficiency.
MCMTC president Callum Chen said overlapping services in the government ministries should be eliminated as they would only confuse and add unnecessary costs.
"Malaysia has a small population and a lot of the industries are still labour-intensive and dependent on foreign labour.
"As of now, applying for and getting foreign manpower requires a lot of time, effort and costs to deal with multiple agencies such as the Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR), Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA), Department of Labour (under MOHR) and for those in manufacturing via the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).
"We would like to see more efficiency and transparency in the government machinery," Chen said in a statement.
On Dec 21, Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar announced that One Channel System (OCS) to recruit domestic workers was under MOHR and the One-Stop Centre (OSC) for the recruitment of foreign workers was under MOHA.
He added that in February 2022, the management of foreign workers was handed over to MOHR from MOHA.
Chen said MOHR wass the umbrella organisation overseeing the planning, management and development of Malaysia's manpower resources, and as such, the appropriate ministry to manage foreign workers recruitment and management as well.
"The MOHA controls the immigration affairs such as the issuance of work permits. The questions that come to mind with the said announcement by the Human Resources Minister are: Why is there a necessity to still have various ministries involved, with various document submissions?
"Would there be an improvement in the system or more confusion? Can we not have one single Ministry with a single online system that is transparent and easy to use?" he asked.
FMM recently called on the government to review the decision to split the role of foreign worker management between MOHA and MOHR.
It said the entire processing of labour demand must be handled by MOHR while MOHA should focus on security issues, issuance of the relevant visa and border control measures as done in other countries that had a similar dependence on foreign workers to complement the country's manpower requirements.
Source: https://www.nst.com.my/business/2022/12/864409/better-have-single-agency-handle-foreign-workers-employment-mcmtc