Employers in the private sectors of Sabah have raised their concerns to Sabah DAP over the issue of oppressive action taken against their foreign workers by Immigration Department, causing a severe labor shortage problem in the state. We strongly condemn the Barisan Nasional government for failing to preserve the best interests of the Sabah citizen, and if not created a more difficult hardship for them.
We put forward this issue to the Home Ministry during the Q&A session in Parliament and told the House that we received these complaints from the people of Sabah. We had been informed by the employers that during the operations to crackdown on illegal migrant workers, the Immigration Department had arrested people which also includes those who had shown their proof of receipt for work permit to the Immigration Officer but were left unattended, causing them to be detained for 3 days without any justified reason.
We further criticized the Immigration Department for not showing an empathy towards the employers and workers, as more often than not it takes a lot of time to process the work permit application.
During this period when the workers were still undocumented, Immigration officers would still be deployed to inspect those workers’ identification and as frequent as even during weekends. The threshold test is so low that so long if the Immigration Officers reasonably believe the migrant worker does not possess a valid work permit, they will be detained without any ground of justification. When employers decide to bail them out by showing the Immigration officers the worker’s work document, they are often turned down by the officers and are told to come back during working days. Many have claimed that the officers are asking for bribes from employers to release the workers. Why is the MACC not taking any action.
We were also unhappy with the answer provided by the Home Ministry, the ministry was irresponsible to say the issue should be referred back Sabah state government, and the suggestion to make enquiry with Sabah-Labuan Foreign Workers’ Commission.
On the other hand, it is undeniably true that the Sabah economy have been over reliant on migrant workers over the past decades. The statistics provided by East Planters’Association, where it was stated that more than 90% of the plantation workers are foreigners. In the West coast, employers in cities such as Kudat, Kota Marudu, and Beaufort hired about 50% of local workers, whilst the numbers of foreign workers are higher in East coast.
The Sabah planters are currently facing labor shortage of 20%. The workers’ turnover rates are high with voluntary or involuntary termination of employment, and therefore there are always vacancies that need to be filled. This severe labour shortage problem is even more obvious during peak season in the oil palm industry. Therefore, without an imminent and suitable measure being enforced by the relevant authority, the palm oil industy in Sabah is expected to see a drop in volume of production and thus caused a loss of 10%.
Moreover, the F&B industry is also facing the same problem with labor shortage. According to Ho Su Mong, the President of Malaysia-Singapore Coffee Shop Proprietors’ General Association (MSCP), there were between 1700 and 1800 of coffee houses that were forced to close down due to the difficulty of hiring foreign labour. Equally, Malaysian Indian-Muslim Restaurant Owners Association (PRESMA) Chairman Ayub Khan said that the Muslim restaurants also faced the same fate, where about 500 to 800 restaurants were closed due to labour issue.
We do not understand why the BN government always want to inspect the foreign labour, making the private vendors to suffer. In oil palm industry, it is expected the price of crude palm oil would fall between RM2300 and RM1900 per ton, causing a loss in value of up to RM1.8 billion. Most of the restaurant owners are just ordinary citizens, and they are the one that is going to suffer the most. Severe labour shortage would not only create a negative workforce cycle, but also enhance the illegal worker problem. Besides, isn’t that a waste of money and a cutback on competitiveness if employers are required to fill up multiple application to different government agencies, instead of simplifying the complex process. The ruthless behavior of authorities to unreasonably clampdown migrant workers is just adding more problem to the people.
As such, we appeal to the relevant authorities to simplify the current immigration system which involves 10 government agencies for work permit application. Instead, a one-stop service should be implemented by the government to avoid unnecessary delay and expenses for the employers.