Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
Teo Nie Ching
10:55AM Dec 31, 2013
MP SPEAKS Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan revealed in Parliament on Nov 11, 2013 that overseas remittances by foreign workers in Malaysia doubled from RM10 billion in 2009 to almost RM20 billion last year.
Our per capita income was US$10,387 or RM33,202 in 2012. If these overseas remittances were earned by Malaysians, it would increase our per capita income to RM33,916, a raise of RM714, which would bring a far-reaching positive effect to our local economy.
Ahmad Maslan also mentioned that the top country with the highest number of overseas remittance last year was Bangladesh, ie RM3.032 billion. However, according to the information that I obtained from the Parliament, there were 132,350 legal Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia as at Dec 31, 2012.
In order words, each Bangladeshi worker had remitted to their country a sum of RM22,667 per year or RM1,889 per month in 2012.
This figure is too high to be real, which means the illegal Bangladeshi foreign workers might be two to three times more than the legal Bangladeshi foreign workers recorded in our country.
In addition to causing cash outflow, foreign workers also become a burden to our healthcare system.
The Health Ministry has enforced the Hospitalisation and Surgical Scheme for Foreign Workers effective Jan 1, 2011, a mandatory medical coverage for all foreign workers with a premium of RM120 and a total coverage of RM10,000.
For the foreign workers who have failed to pay for their medical fees, they are prohibited from renewing their working permits, and their employers will be blacklisted from employing new foreign workers. However, as at April 2013, a high sum of foreign workers’ medical expenses are still owed to the government hospitals because of poor enforcement.
In Sabah alone, the unpaid bill by the foreign workers have increased from RM21.54 million as at 2011 to RM40.9 million as at April 30, 2013.
Hence, these foreign workers, apart from meeting our demand for human resources in the industrial, commercial, agricultural and fishery areas, have increased the hidden social costs.
Over-reliance on these foreign workers will also lead our economic system to remain as a foundry industry. Thus, the government must take initiatives and comprehensive plans to address these problems incurred by the foreign workers.
TEO NIE CHING is the DAP MP for Kulai in Johor.
Source: Malaysiakini
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