KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 ― Bestinet Sdn Bhd said today none of its directors or shareholders have any interest or are in anyway involved in other companies who are also service providers for the foreign workers recruitment process.
Its director Datuk V. Ratnakrishnan called for a media briefing today to “clear the air” about multiple allegations against the company following a report in a Nepali newspaper last month over Bestinet’s alleged monopoly in the whole hiring exercise of workers coming to Malaysia.
Ratnakrishnan said the company wants to move forward and explain the real ‘picture’ as there has been a lot of distorted information on the matter.
“We want to make it clear, we have no monopoly here as we are not involved in the recruitment activities in the labour source countries and Malaysia. Neither do we have direct contact with foreign workers and the recruitment agents,” he said.
“We are merely the service provider within the foreign worker recruitment process ― in-charge of the health screening for workers at the source country,” he added.
He said there is a misconception that the company has a control over the whole process as it also uses the biometric system for that purpose.
“There is a misconception that the biometric checking done by immigration security clearance is also done by us, but it is not,” he said.
He said the company also wants to explain the matter to Human Resource Minister M. Kulasegaran, who has also not been briefed thoroughly on the matter.
Ratnakrishnan was commenting on Kulasegaran’s remark this morning that the temporary withdrawal of the Temporary Employment Visit Pass or PLKS is not the cause of the current shortage of Nepalese workers in Malaysia but is due to misappropriation by Bestinet.
Ratnakrishnan said the company is willing to forget what has been said prior to this and will mull legal action in the future if anymore baseless allegations were hurled against the company.
“We want to explain our role in the entire process so that the misunderstandings are cleared,” he said.
“We are more than happy to work with the authorities on this matter of re-looking the whole foreign workers hiring process,” he added.
Ratnakrishnan, in refuting the allegations in the Nepalese media, said Bestinet’s Chief Executive Officer Ismail Mohd Noor had gone to Kathmandu to discuss the matter with the authorities.
However, he conceded they could not do much as such matters are a government-to-government matter and the company does not have the locus standi.
To a question about allegations that the company was involved in money laundering activities, Ratnakrishnan said for every payment of RM100 per screening, a receipt is issued accordingly.
When asked if the company had obtained the 6-year contract in 2015 through an open tender or direct negotiation, Ratnakrishnan said the company received approval from the Home Ministry under proof of concept basis contract in 2012.
He said it was then adopted by the Malaysian government in 2015.
Also present at the press conference was Bestinet’s lawyer Datuk Datuk N. Sivananthan.
Last month, Bestinet came into the spotlight after Nepali Times alleged that the company had engaged in an alleged “scam” against the country’s migrant workers.
The media outlet alleged that Bestinet has been charging migrant worker for scanning passports, fingerprinting and uploading the data online.
It had also alleged that former home minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s brother, Datuk Abdul Hakim Hamidi, was a stakeholder in the firm.
Bestinet denied all allegations, stating that it was only a service provider for the Bio-medical system and screening which was one of the modules of Bestinet’s own pioneering and award-winning Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS).
It denied entirely that it had profited from other fees related to the application process, insisting that it only charged RM100 for the biometric system.
“We would like to state that ISC (Immigration Security Clearance), VLN (Visa Luar Negara), OSC (One Stop Centre) services are not provided by Bestinet and Bestinet is not related to the providers of these services and any Kathmandu-based agents,” the company was reported saying recently.
