There will not be an influx of Bangladeshi workers to the state due to the stringent requirement to bring them in, said Malaysia’s Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot.
The Serian MP mentioned that plantation owners were not quite in favour of hiring Bangladeshi workers due to the strict guideline imposed under the Government to Government (G2G) mechanism and standard operating procedure drafted for their recruitment in the state, despite it facing acute shortage of workers especially fresh fruit bunch harvesters.
He advised the people not to worry too much over their presence because under the G2G agreement they could only work here for a maximum of two years, stressing the state’s main priority was to meet the manpower needs of the plantation sector due to lack of interest from locals.
He revealed that response from Bangladeshis had not been good and that about 1,000 of them were expected to arrive here by April instead of 5,000 as projected earlier.
“Any employer wishing to employ Bangladeshi workers must comply with all relevant provisions of the Labour Legislation enforced in Sarawak. The employer must provide decent accommodation within their premises to the workers, bear the costs of medical check-ups upon their arrival here and deposit a bank guarantee of RM2,500 for every worker employed.
“At the end of the employment contract, or if they commit crime, creating social illness or even carrying diseases, they will be sent back to their home country using the bond placed by their employers,” Riot told reporters when met at SUPP Chinese New Year open house at its headquarters here on Thursday.
The SUPP deputy president pointed out that the state was trying to bring in as few foreign workers as possible despite the plantation sector needing 30,000 workers at present.
“If possible, we do not want foreigners to work in the plantation sector. We want to help our people but because the locals do not want the job, saying that working in plantations is dirty and dangerous, what else can we do? The manufacturing industry is also in need of workers.
“Those who are strongly against the government to bring in foreign workers, if they can come out with 30,000 locals to work in the plantation sector, only then we can forget about hiring Bangladeshi workers,” he explained.
In the past, the state highly depended on Indonesian workers in the palm oil sector but their number had dropped significantly because they preferred to return home and work in palm oil plantations that were opening up at a large scale in their home country.
The requirements under the G2G recruitment mechanism that need to be fulfilled before companies are allowed to hire Bangladeshi workers include them advertising in local newspapers and radio to inform locals of available job opportunities.
The requirements also stipulate that unless it is a government-linked company (GLC), the company’s minimum paid-up capital must be RM1 million or more apart from having provisional lease from the state government to develop land for palm oil plantation.
It must also be in possession of a licence from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board with a plantation size of 2,000 hectares or more, with locals making at least 30 per cent of their workforce and Bangladeshi workers making up not more than 20 per cent of the general workers in the plantation.
“The government will not compromise the interest of the locals, whether in terms of priority for employment or security. We want 100 per cent workers but no takers. That is why we have to outsource,” he explained.
Source: Borneo Post, Kuching (Sarawak)