Controversial recruitment system to stay 3 more years
The Malaysian government will use for another three years the Foreign Worker Centralized Management System, which is fraught with allegations of irregularities, news portal Malaysiakini reported yesterday.
The online system operated by Bestinet Sdn Bhd manages the recruitment of workers from Bangladesh and 14 other countries.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Bestinet owner Aminul Islam Abdul Nor, a Bangladesh born Malaysia citizen, is behind a cartel of 100 Bangladeshi recruiting agencies that syphoned crores of taka paid by migration seekers out of Bangladesh, according to insiders of overseas recruitment business.
The 100 recruiting agencies were selected by the Malaysian government in August 2022 to recruit Bangladeshi workers. Since then, almost 500,000 workers have migrated to Malaysia.
The Southeast Asian country suspended foreign workers recruitment on May 31. The Malaysian government's previous contract with Bestinet expired the same day.
On March 28, four UN experts wrote a letter to the Malaysia and Bangladesh governments, saying that criminal networks operate in the recruitment process of Bangladeshi workers who are deceived and obliged to pay exorbitant sums which pushes them into debt bondage.
Besides, the workers are recruited by companies that exist only on papers.
The UN experts said Bangladeshi migrants paid between $4,500 to $6,000 for recruitment fees, which is the highest in the world.
Many migrants find on arrival in Malaysia that they do not have a job as promised and are forced into overstaying their visa. Consequently, they risk arrest, detention, ill-treatment and deportation. Many become destitute and face an alarming humanitarian crisis, said the UN experts.
The situation requires urgent attention before it escalates further or before lives are further put at risk, they said.
According to Malaysiakini, the Malaysian cabinet agreed to continue using Bestinet's service after reviewing a paper presented by the home ministry on May 29. However, the terms of the agreement with the company remains unclear.
The news portal wrote that it could not get comments from Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and Bestinet President Aminul.
The Auditor-General's Report 2022 revealed that Bestinet's online system had many weaknesses that made it susceptible to manipulation, with instances of conflict of interest and breach of governance and control, reports Malaysiakini.
Malaysia's Public Accounts Committee recently investigated Bestinet, but its findings will only be tabled in parliament when the house convenes later in June, it said.
Last week, Channel News Asia (CNA) reported that the government was under pressure to renew the lease with the platform linked with trafficking allegations, despite the intentions of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's regime to overhaul the system.
Sources told CNA that Bestinet, a firm with strong ties to top politicians and a history of controversy, was pushing back against the government's migrant labour reform agenda.
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