by NURUL SUHAIDI

THE National Association of Private Employment Agencies (PAPSMA) supports the Human Resources Ministry’s decision to temporarily halt the current digital system used for the recruitment process of foreign workers.

Its secretary general Dr Sukumaran Nair said the system should not take over the government’s responsibilities and the policies laid down by the ministry.

He previously noted that the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System was known to have many glitches and employers also found it difficult to use. 

Many employees were also unable to fulfil the requirements set by the process in the digital platform system.

“We believe that there will be major changes where the process of recruiting foreign workers into Malaysia can be expedited,” PAPSMA said in the statement today. 

Although the government has signed the memorandum of understanding since last year, the government-to-government memorandums seemed to be delayed in the term of the recruitment.

“We are very surprised that despite the acute shortage in almost all sectors, there is still a slowdown in the process and we want to know whether it is deliberately done by some agencies or individuals for their own personal gains,” he added. 

Instead, he stressed that the government should allow the business-to-business process to be done and conducted by local recruiting agencies that are licensed.

“To expedite the process of recruitment, the government can rely on our foreign recruiting counterparts in all the rest of the sourced countries,” he said.  

According to him, currently, the delayed process of approval for workers in some dire-need sectors is causing Malaysia to lose millions of ringgit.

PAPSMA also urged the government to meet market players to find mutual ways and practices to smoothen the processes without foregoing existing policies and regulations. 

Adding further, Sukumaran mentioned that PAPSMA rejects syndication and monopoly set by any country in the area of recruitment and placement of foreign workers into Malaysia.

“Therefore, we are proposing for a fair and ethical form of recruitment without any monopoly, opening the process to all legal and registered agencies for the deployment of foreign workers into Malaysia,” he said.

He also agreed that the recruitment syndications have contributed to the rise of human trafficking and forced labour in the past including in Malaysia during the 2015 to 2017 era.