KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has agreed to open up more sectors for foreign workers from India, says Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.
“Recently, the joint committee between the Home Ministry and the Human Resources Ministry have approved other sectors,” he said while answering questions from MPs on the matter during the tabling of Employees’ Social Security (Amendment) 2022 Bill in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.
Workers from India are allowed to work in several sectors, including in restaurants under the services category and high tension cable installations under the construction category.
On Monday, Saravanan and Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said the manufacturing, construction and services industries would be allowed to hire foreign workers from all 15 source countries.
The Home Ministry website lists the 15 countries as India, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Kazakhstan.
On the PenjanaKerjaya fund misappropriation case, Saravanan said the matter was a joint operation between the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and Socso.
“This is our effort. We enlisted MACC. There is a misunderstanding that MACC took action against Socso, but in fact it was a joint operation,” he told MPs, adding that Socso was not making a statement on the case which might disrupt the investigations by the authorities.
He said so far, 66 companies and 37 individuals had been detained.
The MACC and Socso launched the operation to investigate claims that certain employers and training providers had submitted false claims for the PenjanaKerjaya programme.
It was introduced in 2020 under the National Economic Recovery Plan, offering financial incentives of between RM600 and RM1,000 to employers for each employee or apprentice employed for up to six months.
Socso has suspended payments totalling RM423mil for the programme following the probe.
The Employees’ Social Security (Amendment) 2022 Bill was later passed in the House.
The amendment seeks to raise the ceiling of wages for contributions for the First Category (Employment Injury Scheme and Invalidity Scheme) under the Act from RM4,000 to RM5,000.
