KUALA LUMPUR: The Human Resources Ministry should create an online system for the recruitment of Indonesian domestic workers as a means to end the impasse over the hiring of maids from the country.
Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia, Hermono (pic), said Indonesia would be willing to “hook up” with such an online mechanism for the hiring of domestic workers.
Malaysia and Indonesia are at loggerheads over worker recruitment because Putrajaya insists on using its Sistem Maid Online (SMO), a system that is used by nine source countries.
However, Indonesia insists on its One Channel System (OCS), where it can track the movement of all its workers from that country.
Hermono said that any acceptance of the SMO must follow the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed on April 1 in Jakarta.
To this end, he said the ministry should create its own online system for the recruitment of Indonesian domestic workers and link it to the embassy’s monitoring system.
“The MOU, in fact, states that the ministry is to build an online system for the purpose. To my understanding, this has not been done,” he told The Star yesterday.
The biggest complaint by Indonesia is that the SMO allows Indonesians to enter Malaysia as tourists and then apply to become domestic workers, bypassing the country’s monitoring system.
Hermono said he attended a meeting with the ministry’s acting secretary-general, Datuk Muhd Khair Razman Mohamed Annuar, and Immigration director-general, Datuk Seri Khairul Dzaimee Daud, on Monday to discuss the labour dispute.
He said that Khairul Dzaimee’s comments from the day before about how both sides had “agreed in principle” to combine the SMO and OCS were accurate only if Malaysia followed the terms of the MOU.
“As long as the SMO issue is not ironed out, the temporary freeze on the intake of Indonesian workers across all sectors remains,” he added.
He said that if Malaysia wanted amendments to the MOU, it would take “months, even years” before the workers could come.
“The best way is for our top officials to talk,” he added.
The envoy said he would fly to Jakarta on Monday to brief his government on the latest developments.
