KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 — The Bumiputera Entrepreneurs Club of Foreign Worker Suppliers and Management (D’Kelab) today asserted that 1.5 million Bangladeshi labourers will not add to the existing foreign worker pool as feared.
Instead, it claimed that these will replace foreigners whose contracts are due to expire, primarily Bangladeshi workers here that are on permits that will run out within the next two years.
D’Kelab secretary-general Ishak Kamaruddin said that this was because the last intake of Bangladeshi workers was between the years of 2007 and 2008, and were only given a clearance of working in the country for ten years.
He added that the government’s 6P programme to legitimise undocumented foreign workers initiated in 2011 only allowed four years of work starting 2012.
“The figure of 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers was not plucked out of thin air,” he told reporters in a press conference here.
“What was estimated by the deputy prime minister is reasonable. The figure is simply a replacement of outgoing foreign workers. It is not an addition to the total number of foreign workers here,” he added.
Ishak said the group hoped that the announced freeze on the intake of foreign workers would only be temporary as there was a growing need for foreign labour, especially in the “3D” industries.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi, who is also the chairman of the Cabinet committee on foreign workers, announced last Friday that the government was suspending all foreign worker recruitment with immediate effect.
Ahmad Zahid, who is also home minister, added that the moratorium will remain until Putrajaya is convinced about the actual manpower requirements in the various sectors locally.
The Human Resource Ministry said on Friday there were 2,135,035 documented foreign workers as of December last year and an estimated 1.7 million illegal workers in Malaysia.
