THE Human Resources Ministry’s claim that it had met the nation’s demand for foreign labour contradicts complaints from industry associations about worker shortages, DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng said today.

The DAP chairman said several associations have repeatedly told the government to resolve the problem urgently, first by ending the Human Resources Ministry’s involvement in the process because it had failed.

Yesterday, the Human Resource Ministry announced that it had approved more than 540,000 migrant worker quotas, of which 437,000 employers had already paid the levy.

It said that, taking into account the existing 1.3 million migrant workers already in country, its approvals meant that the target of 1.8 million workers had been met.

“The reality is that the contractors across the entire construction industry dispute the Human Resources Ministry’s false claim that the shortage has been resolved.

“The Master Builders Association Malaysia and 10 other construction associations said the continued shortage has stifled the recovery of the construction industry, noting that they are facing higher interest rates,” Lim said in a statement.

On Friday, the MBAM sought the immediate intervention of Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to reinstate the Construction Labour Exchange Centre Berhad to simplify the entry of migrant workers.

The MBAM said the key to ensure sufficient supply of workers is “to simplify the foreign worker application process”.

The centre, it said, should be allowed to handle migrant worker issues without the participation of the Human Resources Ministry, which was the original plan for the construction industry.

The centre is an organisation established in July 2002 by the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) to bring in and redistribute migrant workers to companies nationwide. – October 2, 2022.