A WAR of words broke out between Human Resources Minister M. Saravanan and M. Kula Segaran (Ipoh Barat-PH) over who was responsible for the delayed procurement of migrant labour, in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Kula accused Saravanan and his ministry of shirking responsibility for the issue through its stance that it was only required to approve quotas and sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the source countries.

Meanwhile, Saravanan said the Home Ministry was in charge of other matters such as biometrics and visa with reference (eVDR).

“You are giving excuses, what is your role as a co-chair in the committee with the Home Ministry?” Kula said.

“Why are you not asking them to expedite matters. You have confused people by saying that we have no MOU. We have one with Nepal, I signed it,” Kula said.

Saravanan in response said that it was Kula’s fault that Malaysia has not received any Bangladesh workers for the past three years.

Kula, the human resources minister during Pakatan Harapan’s time in power, placed a moratorium on workers from Bangladesh on September 1, 2018.

“Many people are using this issue as political mileage and the facts have been twisted,” Saravanan said.

“I wanted to answer professionally but, since Kula is trying to twist the facts, when we talk about migrant workers, many are from Bangladesh and the rest come from Indonesia.

“When he was minister, he announced a moratorium on workers from Bangladesh, so there were no workers (from there) until PH lost power.

“When the government changed and I took over we faced Covid-19.

“Therefore, due to his actions, for three years up to April 1 – when the borders reopened – we had no workers from Bangladesh,” Saravanan said.

Malaysia signed an MOU with Bangladesh in June this year, while the MOU with Indonesia was signed in July.

There are currently 1.2 million migrant workers in the county and a few thousand more are set to arrive within the next two months, Saravanan said.

“The Home Ministry has approved a total of 238,943 eVDR and these workers will come in soon.

“A total of 644,379 people are undergoing biometric and medical screening in the source country.

“Within the next two months, we will have 2.12 million migrant labourers in the country, this is even higher than the pre-pandemic era when there were only 1.8 million,” he said.

Saravanan said any applications after this will be screened closely as the ministry did not want Malaysia to become a “dumping ground” for foreign labour.

He said the delay in the arrival of workers from Bangladesh was also due to logistical issues.

“In the three months since the MOU was signed, there have only been six flights from Bangladesh and nine flights from Malaysia to Bangladesh,” he said. – October 4, 2022.