M'sia, Indonesia to finally ink MOU on domestic workers on April 1, says HR Minister

KUALA LUMPUR: After several setbacks, Malaysia and Indonesia will go ahead to ink a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the recruitment and placement of Indonesian domestic workers (PDI) this coming April 1, says Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.

"The MOU between Malaysia and Indonesia on recruitment and placement of Indonesian domestic workers will be signed in Jakarta on April 1.

"It will be witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Indonesian president Joko Widodo," the Human Resources Minister told reporters at a press conference in Parliament on Tuesday (March 15).

The Minister cleared the air over the apparent postponement of the MOU signing ceremony, which was supposed to have taken place on Friday (March 18) in Jakarta, Indonesia.

"The ceremony was supposed to take place on March 18 and the Indonesian president wanted to be a witness at the signing ceremony.

"As such, an invitation was also extended to our Prime Minister to be a witness during the ceremony.

"However, the Prime Minister already had a prior engagement on the date as he will be attending the Umno general assembly," Saravanan explained.

On Monday (March 14), Saravanan told Dewan Rakyat that the MOU would be inked by this week.

The Umno general assembly will take place between March 16 and 19.

Earlier Tuesday (March 15), Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia Hermono said that the proposed ceremony was called off due to unavailability of leaders of both countries.

Malaysia and Indonesia signed their first MOU on domestic worker recruitment in May 2006 and a subsequent amended MOU in May 2011, which expired in May 2016.

Several attempts by both countries to ink a new MOU ran into difficulties in agreeing on the mode of hiring the maids and minimum wages.

On Jan 24 this year, Saravanan announced that the MOU would be signed in Bali on Feb 7 and 8.

However, this did not happen as negotiations could not be finalised in time.

One of the issues was Indonesia’s demand for a One Channel System (OCS) to be implemented on the hiring of its domestic workers.

The OCS system entails a government-to-government channel on the employment of Indonesian domestic workers to Malaysia.

Once inked, Indonesia is to provide 10,000 domestic workers to Malaysia under a pilot project.

MOU is likely to see a cap on the maximum fee chargeable at RM15,000 for Indonesia workers.