SARAWAK’S key industries and major infrastructure projects will continue to face worker shortage and not operate at maximum capacity even though borders have reopened, Fadillah Yusof said.

The Works Minister said this was because the source countries for the state’s foreign workers are still not allowing their citizens to go abroad.

He told The Malaysian Insight that the decision will mean the Pan Borneo highway project in Sarawak will continue to face challenges due to a shortage of manpower.

Fadillah said the 10 contractors of the 10 work packages, which are at various stages of progress, are nearly 1,500 workers short.

They come from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

He added that the vast majority are from Indonesia with many having made the short trip across the Sarawak-Kalimantan land border crossing at Tebedu-Entikong.

The border crossing was reopened on April 14.

“Like all infrastructure projects (everywhere in) the nation, the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the progress of these projects. The implementation of the Pan Borneo Highway in Sabah and Sarawak is no different,” Fadillah said.

“Our borders (have reopened) but other countries, particularly those which supply labour, are still not allowing their citizens to return to their jobs overseas.”

Fadillah said the migrant workers working on the Pan Borneo highway perform a variety of jobs, from general work to ones that require specific skill sets, such operating heavy machinery.

He said work package contractors are making efforts to bring foreign workers into the state.

“They are going through the due process of applying for foreign worker permits from Jabatan Tenaga Kerja (Manpower Department).”

He said as at the end of last month, about 30% of the applications were successful in getting approvals.

Manpower shortage is not the only factor that has caused the delay of highway’s completion – from the end of this year to next year, Fadillah said.

He said among the common complaints he received from the contractors are the lack of construction material and machinery.

The Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa) had also voiced its difficulties in doing business due to the shortage of workers.

Its members have requested that the state government to use its autonomy over labour to allow the hiring of workers from other countries apart from Indonesia.

Sarawak only allows its oil palm plantations to source workers from Indonesia, unlike in Peninsular Malaysia, which allows recruitment from a number of countries and migrant  workers make up 80% of their workforce.

Soppoa chief executive officer Felix Moh said the manpower shortage cost the industry RM2 billion in lost income last year.

In a statement, Moh said the current situation faced by the plantation industry makes it timely for Sarawak to relax its foreign worker recruitment policy.

He suggested plantation owners be allowed to recruit workers from Bangladesh.

In the labour-intensive industry which locals are not keen on working in, foreign workers carry out a range of tasks from nursing new oil palm seedlings, maintaining existing oil palm trees to harvesting of palm fruits.

The border closure and the halting of new recruitment for foreign workers in the last two years to curb the transmission of the Covid-19 had led to the shortage. – April 28, 2022.