KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — Former human resources minister M. Kulasegaran has urged the Home Ministry to hand over the management of foreign workers to the Human Resources Ministry, so that they can be better managed.
He said this is one of the immediate changes that can be taken to eradicate the issue of forced labour in Malaysia.
“This is essentially important because it involves some of our biggest companies that provide thousands of jobs,” Kulasegaran said in a statement.
The Ipoh Barat MP also suggested that a report concerning foreign worker management which was drafted during his tenure as minister should be implemented immediately.
“At the time, I initiated a special independent committee led by former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Seri Mohd Hishamudin Md Yunus, whose report comprised 40 recommendations which I then presented to the Cabinet for discussion.
“After presenting it to the Cabinet, a committee was set up and headed by the chief secretary to the government to suggest how the recommendations and proposals should be implemented,” he said.
Kulasegaran said the report’s suggestions include establishing the Home Ministry as the single authority for foreign worker management, and the development of an end-to-end, single online system for the recruitment of foreign labour.
“One of the most significant proposals was for the abolishment of outsourcing licences for labour supply, which would have brought an end to third-party service providers or agents.
“I had also promised the rakyat that the report would be made public. However, to date not one proposal or recommendation has been implemented, nor has the report been made public,” he said.
On the recent order by the United States’ Customs and Border Protection agency to its personnel, to seize all of Top Glove Corporation Bhd’s products entering the country through its ports amid allegations that the company was using forced labour, Kulasegaran said this could have been prevented, and warned that more sanctions were likely.
“Although it is unfortunate that the biggest glove producer in the world has been sanctioned, it did not come without warning.
“As minister I had two town hall sessions with glove manufacturers, where I cautioned them about the possibility of sanctions and urged them to comply by cleaning up their supply chains and ensuring no elements of forced labour exist,” he said.
Kulasegaran added that glove manufacturers were informed that Putrajaya would cooperate with the US Embassy in Malaysia as well as the US Customs and Border Protection on the matter.
“I went to the US and met with the agency’s head in order to ensure that we work with them to clean up any elements of forced labour. This is why I was so adamant to also amend our labour laws and most of them are inadequate and outdated.
“The possibility of more countries applying the same sanctions similar to that of the US Customs and Border Protection is likely. Worse still, if left unresolved it could spread to other companies and later other industries,” he said.
Following the order by the US agency on Monday, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said on Tuesday that Malaysia’s image has been tarnished as a result, and vowed that any company that abuses its workers would be punished.
