In any endeavor that is related to business direction or formulating a governing strategy, having a forecast of future scenarios is critical. One does not resolve a problem by merely turning back to the past, without appropriate steps that points to the future
A proactive leadership would forecast the future and take appropriate steps to mitigate possible obstacles in realization of a goal.
Unfortunately, this cannot be true about our current Human Resources Minister who is using the past as an excuse for his ministry’s failure in addressing the issue of shortage of foreign labour in the country.
The Minister tends to blame Pakatan Harapan for the current mess related to recruitment and shortage of foreign workers in the country
In reply to my queries on the 3th of August 2022 in Parliament on the amount foreign workers that has been approved from respective countries from year 2020 to year 2022 the minister replied that the application for foreign workers have open up starting 15th February 2022 through the platform of foreign workers centralized Management system (FWCMS).
According to the minister prior to this, the government enforced a moratorium on the entry of foreign workers from March 2020 to April 2022, and at this point of time the entry of foreign workers was still under the ministry of home Affairs.
It is obvious from the Parliamentary reply that the minister did not blame Pakatan Harapan for the shortage of foreign workers. Why is the blame coming now?
Didn’t the minister realize that the moratorium on foreign workers from March 2020 to April 2022 had an interim impact on the current shortage of workers? Was the home ministry made aware of potential pitfalls related to the moratorium?
There was almost a two-year gap which could have been used to plan, execute and mitigate the potential pitfalls once the economy is fully functioning and the moratorium on foreign workers is lifted. Further the shortages was already beginning to take place as many legal, undocumented and illegal workers were returning to their home country.
Why was this period of moratorium not used to consult employers on what needs to be done with the gradual relaxation of MCO, where the economy is set on a normal path?
Why was there an absence of forecasts in the ministry? The minister has all the experts who could have advised him on potential issues surrounding the recruitment of foreign workers.
The issue surrounding the recruitment and shortage of manpower is not only about whether the ministry has approved the quota for 330,223 of foreign workers as stated in the Parliamentary written reply, it is also about the application processes that are bureaucratic and centralized causing a lot of delays in getting approval from the ministry.
Therefore, it is hoped that the Minister would take full responsibility for his inability in reading the signs of times or forecasting potential crises related to the recruitment of foreign workers that has severely affected the capacity of our industries to produce more goods resulting in billions of ringgit of losses Blaming Pakatan Harapan for the current mess is simplistic and lacking foresight.