KUALA LUMPUR: The Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM) is urging the government to keep service counters at all immigration offices open for the renewal of foreign worker permits after Feb 28.
ACCCIM secretary-general Tan Sri Teo Chiang Kok said employers should be given the option of using counter service or MyEG Services Bhd’s online service.
“It is wrong to have a monopoly on the renewal services. Anything short of that would make a mockery of the said act (The Competition Act 2010),” he told a press conference yesterday.
Teo noted that if the renewal services of foreign worker permits (PLKS) fall under MyEG (fundamental: 2.6; valuation: 1.5), employers should not be paying the full quantum of the Immigration Department’s existing RM125 fee per foreign worker, “since it is no longer doing the [same amount of] work”.
Teo said, “[Costs of] outsourcing should not be passed on to consumers ... there should be savings.”
Echoing Teo’s views, Malaysian Plastics Manufacturers Association president Lim Kok Boon said it would only be fair if the RM38 service fee per foreign worker imposed by MyEG be apportioned out of the RM125 currently being paid to the Immigration Department.
He noted that the fee paid to the Immigration Department had been increased by 150% to RM125 in April last year.
Additionally, Lim said the appointment of MyEG as an online PLKS renewal provider must be reviewed as it was effected without an open tender system.
“Only MyEG was considered and only MyEG was awarded the right to undertake this function. What is also very perplexing is that MyEG, as a listed company, did not announce that they had been given the contract as the sole online service provider on PLKS.”
“We also don’t see any queries by Bursa Malaysia on the matter,” he said.
The e-government service provider had previously explained that it could not announce the award on behalf of the government, according to an announcement dated Jan 14.
“That is not the correct interpretation of Bursa requirement,” Lim said, adding that Bursa requires companies to announce their deals with the government.
On Jan 5 this year, the Immigration Department implemented a mandatory online renewal of PLKS solely through MyEG with a service charge of RM38 per foreign worker.
All counters for PLKS renewal were then closed after the announcement. However, following strong objections from several parties, the counters were reopened on Jan 23 with the immigration saying it would remain open until Feb 28, but that employers would have to switch back to using the MyEG online renewal service.
A director is now required to be present if a company chooses to use the over-the-counter PLKS renewal, which Teo said is unreasonable, a form of “victimisation”, and was created purely to pressure employers to switch to MyEG’s online renewal.
Lim said foreign and local workers are paid the same minimum wage now so there is no more need to level the playing field with the imposition of the levy. “It’s essential for the government to review the whole system and remove the levy,” he added.
It is worth noting that MyEG’s share price closed at an all-time high of RM2.70 on Jan 8, following the award of the PLKS renewal contract by the Immigration Department, which included the compilation and maintain the database of foreign workers in the country.
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 26, 2015.