KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 -- Employers seeking permits to bring in foreign labour must apply directly with the government, the Home Ministry reiterated today.
In a statement, ministry secretary-general Datuk Mohamad Khalid Shariff said the government does not approve the use of any middleman for such a purpose.
"The Home Ministry stresses that it has never appointed any party as middleman to purportedly facilitate applications for foreign workers," he said in a short statement.
"Applications for foreign labour is to be done directly by the employer. Hence, if any party claims to be an agent or representative of the ministry that is not true," he added.
Last December, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar told Parliament the government had terminated the services of "outsourcing companies" following numerous complaints of cheating and abuse of workers' rights.
He explained that Malaysia now deals directly with source countries when bringing in foreign labourers.
Mohamad Khalid today warned that the ministry takes serious note of public complaints regarding agents and syndicates posing as legit foreign labour brokers.
"Once again, the Home Ministry stressed that it will not compromise and will take action against any party that is directly or indirectly involved in this activity," he said.
Last year, Bloomberg reported that an unregulated network comprising tens of thousands of brokers are still supplying cheap, bonded labour to high-technology production lines owned by international companies based out of Malaysia.
The business wire claimed that tens of thousands of families from Asia’s poorest sectors have ended up deep in debt to buy jobs through brokers to work in factories in Malaysia, a manufacturing hub for the global electronics industry.
