Govt urged to release independent committee report on foreign workers management

THE public is interested to know what the Report of the Independent Committee says about overseas labour recruitment and management. Are there weaknesses in the laws and policies pertaining to the recruitment and management of foreign workers?

Here is the full statement:

We from G25 Malaysia strongly support the growing chorus of calls for the government to release the Independent Committee Report on the Management of Foreign Workers which was submitted to the government in early 2019. The independent committee was chaired by Datuk Seri Mohd Hishamudin Yunus, a former court of appeal judge, with Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin, a former ambassador, as deputy chairperson. Both are members of G25. For the record G25 had made a similar call in the past.

Our call follows the oft-repeated statements from the Prime Minister that his government will practise transparency and accountability in order to make Malaysia a better democracy. An open government is fundamental for good governance and democracy to function well.

Recently, the government released the report on the crash of the GAF Nomad aircraft of Sabah Air near Kota Kinabalu International Airport which happened a long time ago on June 6, 1976. The incident also known as the ‘Double Six Tragedy’ resulted in the loss of lives of several local political leaders, including that of Sabah chief minister Tun Fuad Stephens. The release of the report is commendable and very much overdue. It has brought some measure of justice to the close relatives of the air crash victims.

We fervently hope the government does not wait that long before releasing the Report of the Independent Committee on the Management of Foreign Workers. The longer the delay in making it public, the more the suspicion about the reasons for the delay.

There is no doubt that as Malaysia is short of labour, we need to bring in foreign unskilled workers to do the 3-D (Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult) jobs. This is also because most Malaysians do not want to work as low paid labourers doing dirty, dangerous, and back breaking jobs in the hot sun. On the other hand, some employers have shown that if they provide better wages and working conditions, they can attract locals to work in these jobs. Many Malaysians commute daily to Singapore to work as labourers because they are attracted to the better wages. This shows that if Malaysian workers get better wages, they will do the 3-D jobs. Currently, wage levels at the bottom of the employment ladder are well below the minimum living wages as pointed out in the reports by Bank Negara Malaysia and Khazanah Research Institute.

In recruiting foreign labour, it is important that employers treat their workers humanely. If workers are exploited as forced labour, human rights organisations will report the companies to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This will lead to US Customs, for example, blocking the entry of the export products from Malaysia to the American market, which had happened to a rubber glove manufacturing company. Its cargo was embargoed at the Los Angeles port by US Customs on complaints that the company used forced labour to manufacture its rubber glove products for export.

The public will be interested to know what the Report of the Independent Committee says about overseas labour recruitment and management. With the recruitment practices being so secretive and complex, we are anxious to see the Independent Committee’s comments on the approval process in the relevant ministries and departments. Are there weaknesses in the laws and policies pertaining to the recruitment and management of foreign workers? Are there irregularities and elements of corrupt practices, as often alleged, which were uncovered by the committee? To what extent are the complaints of the exploitation and ill-treatment of foreign workers true? The public pays over RM20,000 to the recruitment agency to bring in an Indonesian maid. Employers pay highly too, to agents to recruit foreign labour for their factories and plantations. There are all kinds of charges, fees and levies imposed on the employers. We would like to know what the Committee’s report says about the mechanism to ensure that the charges are not passed on by the employers to their foreign workers, resulting in the workers being bonded as forced labour for life.

Malaysians are also concerned about whether there are syndicates using corrupt means to arrange for foreign workers to get Malaysian identity cards so that they can become citizens and vote in the elections. This is another serious issue surrounding the recruitment of foreign labour. We hope to see what the Independent Committee says about this serious threat to our national identity.

Further, G25 once again calls for the release of the Report of the Independent Committee on the Sultanah Aminah Hospital Johor Bharu Fire Tragedy of 2016.

The fire at the ICU ward of the Hospital resulted in the loss of lives of 6 patients. The Independent Committee was also chaired by former judge Datuk Seri Mohd Hishamudin Yunus with Tan Sri Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman, former health director-general, as the deputy chairperson.

The committee was tasked to investigate the cause of the fire outbreak and to make recommendations to the government to avoid or minimise the risks of such an occurrence in the future.

The Report of the Independent Committee was submitted to the government in June 2018. As the Cabinet had already declassified this report with a view to make it public way back in October 2019, and there are no more pending court cases, we see no reason why this report should not be made transparent for the public to see. In fact, the then health minister Khairy Jamaluddin had told the media that the Independent Committee Report would be made public upon approval of the Ministry’s legal adviser: ‘Yes, as I have stated previously, my intention is to publish the report. I am just waiting for the ‘green light’ from our legal adviser – when there are no more claims from the next-of-kin of the victims in court.’ This was said almost a year ago. We call upon the government to show its sincerity and commitment, and to act accordingly.

We hope the government upholds its word that it is indeed serious about ensuring transparency, accountability, and good governance for a better Malaysia.

G25