The news of yet another company trying to get the contract to manage the incoming of migrant workers is totally senseless.
It is shocking because, such foreigner incoming management system is already shrouded with controversy. As it is, there are already two companies making hundreds of millions of ringgit each for doing similar jobs.
How many rentier companies are required to handle such system? And how many systems should be set up to do the same thing?
First it was NERS, then MyEG, now Real Time Networking
Earlier, I have highlighted that since Jun 2011, a company called NERS Sdn. Bhd. was awarded a 12-year contract to record and monitor the immigration of foreigners to Malaysia as well as to issue the Visit Pass (Temporary Employment) or Pas Lawatan (Kerja Sementara) (PLKS) which is under the purview of the Home Ministry via the Immigration Department. For each PLKS issued, the government will pay NERS Sdn. Bhd. RM50.
According to official financial reports, the Home Ministry paid NERS RM105.3 million in 2013, and RM75 million in 2014. The Ministry is expected to pay NERS RM100 million in 2015.
And then in January 2015, another company, MyEG Services Bhd. was appointed by the government to be the sole PLKS renewal service provider through their online platform. By pocketing RM38 per transaction, MyEg is expected to earn about RM100 million a year as well as receiving billions of ringgit annually in processing fees before remitting it to the government.
MyEg was subsequently investigated by the Malaysia Competition Commission (MyCC) on the charge of monopoly. Yet, till today, there is still no report on the results of the investigation.
Now, another company, Real Time Networking Sdn. Bhd. is said to be vying to provide an online system for the registration of Bangladeshi workers coming to Malaysia. The company’s executive chairman, Abdul Hakim Hamidi is the brother of Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Home Minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
Real Time Networking therefore is another addition to this already crowded controversy where private contractors profit hundreds of millions ringgit by becoming middlemen doing paper shifting work for incoming foreigners.
Even if there is a need to privatise, why so many different companies setting up different systems to do similar kind of work?
This is obviously a case of government jobs being dished out to crony rentiers.
Why can’t the Immigration Department run the system internally instead of contracting it to rentiers earning hundreds of millions of ringgit?
Why is there a need to have so many private contractors profiting hundreds of millions ringgit each year when the Immigration Department can easily set up and manage such system internally?
The fact is, the Immigration Department is already providing online application services including for Professional Visit Pass (PVP), foreign maids, student pass, residence pass and others.
In fact in the last Parliament sitting in April this year, the then Deputy Home Minister, Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar pledged that the government will set up an agency under the Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) to manage foreign workers permit.
What has happened to that now?