Malaysia reviewing agency linked to legalising foreign workers

Malaysia is reviewing the services of MyEG, a private company of the country contracted for providing IT services to the immigration department related to renewal of work permits of foreigners.

Malaysian home ministry is conducting the review as the government took notice of numerous complaints on the services provided by MyEG presently, particularly the online service to renew temporary foreign worker permit (PLKS), reported The Edge Markets, a financial newspaper of Malaysia on Thursday.

“The government takes note and admits that the appointment of companies via direct negotiations has raised certain issues among the consumers due to poor quality of services,” Malaysia's Deputy Home Affairs Minister Datuk Azis Jamman told the Dewan Rakyat (parliament) on Thursday.

The issue is relevant to Bangladesh as MyEG, Iman Resources Sdn Bhd and Bukti Megah (BM) Sdn Bhd, three Malaysian private companies, were linked to processing documents of irregular foreign workers, including Bangladeshis, since February 2016.

However, agents and sub-agents appointed by these companies there have allegedly swindled a huge sum of money from thousands of Bangladeshi workers in the Southeast Asian country, who, over the last two years, had applied to regularise their immigration status.

Of some one million Bangladeshis, 500,000 were undocumented workers and had applied for regularisation to the immigration department through any of the three companies. Most of them were not issued work permits though they had spent huge amounts.

The new Malaysian government, meanwhile, began a crackdown from September 1 and already detained several thousand Bangladeshis alongside other nationals. Malaysia did not heed to the call of rights bodies and migrant activists for declaring a fresh chance for regularisation of the undocumented foreign workers.

Azis Jamman said complaints against MyEG include claims that it was not responsible or was late in taking action on complaints over delays in the foreign workers' work permit renewal process, loss of permits within MyEG's premises, doubtful online applications and non-compliance of renewal terms.

“MyEG is irresponsible and only informed the complainants to refer to immigration offices. There were delays in delivery of PLKS [work permits], and there were complaints that payment of foreign workers' levy by employers via MyEG's system was not presented to the government within the required time frame,” Azis added.

Azis was answering a question by Alice Lau [PH-Lanang] on whether the government can terminate “middle-man” services to reduce costs, pointing to the RM35 million allocated for MyEG's services for the government in 2019.

He explained that MyEG initially provided online service for extension of temporary foreign worker permit for multiple sectors, previously handled by the immigration department.

Meanwhile, MyEG yesterday clarified that it is unable to process applications for the renewal of temporary foreign worker permit if it has not been approved by the authorised officers from the immigration department.

The company said it did not have the authority to approve the printing of any permit, reported Bernama, state news agency of Malaysia.

“If approval is pending from the authorised officers of the immigration department, users will be notified to go there in person to resolve the outstanding issues, as per the approved standard operating procedure,” it added.