Prime Minister Ismail Sabri should personally intervene in the fiasco leading to the freezing of foreign workers from Indonesia both to repair relations with Indonesia and provide economic growth to counter the global economic downturn expected by the end of the year. At a time when Malaysia is facing inflationary pressures and rising prices compounded by a rapidly depreciating ringgit, the acute foreign labour shortage has compelled many businesses to scale down their operations or reject new orders.
Never has the situation been so bad before. Due to the 1.2 million worker shortage, the plantation and glove industry alone are facing losses of RM21 billion and the damage could run to tens of billions of ringgit more if other sectors are included. This desperate state of affairs is reprehensible because it could be easily resolved with a stroke of a pen or a personal intervention of the Prime Minister.
Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia Hermono has announced the temporary freeze of foreign workers from Indonesia to Malaysia, condemning Malaysia “for breaking its promises in the memorandum of understanding (MoU)” signed by Human Resources Minister S. Saravanan on Indonesian maids just three months ago. S. Saravanan pathetically and irresponsibly did not dispute Hermono’s accusations but merely said that the Human Resources Ministry will hold urgent discussions with the Home Affairs Ministry.
Instead of personally intervening on such a major economic and diplomatic matter, Ismail has chosen to delegate and instruct the Ministry of Human Resources and the Home Ministry to immediately resolve the issue of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the recruitment of Indonesian workers signed between the two countries. How can both Ministries resolve the problem when they were responsible for creating the problem in the first place?
This is a classic case of Albert Einstein expressing that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Ismail should stop delegating the problem but take charge when the nation’s economy, business community and rakyat wants an immediate solution. Ismail should learn to be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem so that economic growth will not be hampered due to the inefficiency and incompetence of his government.