Malaysians are wondering whether such an announcement will meet the fate of an earlier announcement made by the then deputy home minister four years ago that the country would expel one million foreign workers, which eventually came to nothing.
Despite decades of the problem of foreign workers in Malaysia, the government’s handling of the problem is still very “ad hoc” responding to the exigencies of the time such as the recent outbreaks of violence, instead of having a comprehensive policy on migrant workers, embracing the short, medium and long-term implications of a huge migrant worker population, with progressive studies to monitor the social, economic, cultural, law and order dimensions of the problem.
The country urgently needs a comprehensive policy on migrant workers, which should among other things fix a ceiling on the threshold of the maximum migrant population needed and permissible in the country, which should be reviewed from time to time, as well as to provide mechanisms to deal with their grievances as migrant workers must be respected as human beings with rights and not as commodities.
The Prime Minister has expressed surprise by the presence of illegal immigrants as the workforce for the construction of Cyberjaya - but the real surprise is that the Prime Minister should be surprised. Can the Works Minister, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu clarify whether Putrajaya and Cyberjaya are being built by illegal immigrants and in any event, to report on the extent of migrant labour, in particular illegal immigrant labour, responsible for their construction.
Down the decades, the authorities have not been able to ascertain accurately or satisfactorily the actual total migrant worker population, both legally registered and the illegal immigrants, in the country.
Even now, the estimates of total migrant worker population in the country varies from less than two million to some three million foreign workers. The Malaysian Trades Union Congress reckons that there are three million migrant workers in the country, which is 13 per cent of the Malaysian population.
In the circumstances, talk of halving the present 900,000 registered Indonesian workers without referring to the presence of some two million illegal immigrants in the country does not seem to be fully addressing the problem of migrant workers in the country.
Although it is very late in the day, but the essential first step is still the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into all aspects of foreign workers and the manpower needs of the country - and the Cabinet on Wednesday should set up such an inquiry without any further delay.
(28/1/2002)