Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 24): The joint committee between the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Human Resource on the management of foreign workers has accepted the proposal to implement a multi-tier levy system for the hiring of foreign workers.

Human Resource Minister M. Kulasegaran said the system is based on the principle the more foreign workers hired the higher the levy imposed will be.

"The system has been used in Singapore for years, whereby foreign employment is subjected to the ratio of how many new local workers to foreign workers are allowed," he told reporters after the committee's first meeting in the Parliament building today.

Kulasegaran said the quantum of the levy has yet to be determined but it will be different according to different industries. But as a point of reference, the current levy imposed will be used for the first tier of the levy.

"Even the quantum has not been agreed, so the time frame is not certain yet but it (the implementation) will be some time next year. We have already consulted with the stakeholders and the industries are aware," he said.

"All this [levy] are tax deductible, so there isn't a big problem on that issue. But I think we also need to use a certain amount of the money to train our workers to make them more adequately employable in all kinds of sectors and not forgetting (trained for) automation.

"These are things that we also want to encourage, otherwise it will be a situation where we are always in need of foreign workers," Kulasegaran added.

Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin added that time will be allocated for the government to further consult the respective sectors to take into account the effect of the implementation of the new policy.

"We have agreed to further consult the respective sub sectors because we have to take into account so that when we implement this they will not be adversely affected. So we have agreed for that discussion to be continued," he said.

"The quantum of levy, as per regard to respective sectors will have to be looked at again so that it will not be too burdensome. But generally from the figures that we have worked out, roughly [it will be] an increment of about 20% over the present levy so it's not so big.

"But in some sub sectors or some other sectors it will be slightly bigger," Muhyiddin said, adding that this decision will be subjected to cabinet's approval.

Muhyiddin also said the committee has decided that the practice of outsourcing foreign worker recruitment to agencies will be discontinued as early as next year. This matter was previously handled by the home ministry but the committee decided today that such a task will be handed over to the human resources ministry under its private employment agency.

Muhyiddin said there are at least 100 companies, handling over 26,000 foreign workers, involved in the outsourcing system, and negotiations with them to finalise the transition will be decided at a later date.

"Our goal is to avoid undesirable things to happen [to the foreign workers]. There [have] been complaints [about the outsourcing agencies] that there are unfair treatment to the workers, cases of human trafficking, and various issues related to foreign workers," Muhyiddin said.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share