Malaysian home ministry proposes allowing Bangladeshis to work as security guards

The Malaysian home ministry has proposed for people from Bangladesh, the Philippines and Indonesia to be allowed to work as security guards, said the country's home minister Hamzah Zainudin.

"We will look into it once we have held an engagement with industry players, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and Defence Ministry," he said when speaking to reporters after a meeting between the Home Ministry and security services industry players yesterday.

"There were also suggestions to take workers from India as well. We have to conduct an in-depth study before we make any announcement," added Hamzah.

He said they had to hold discussions with relevant ministries and agencies to ensure there were no issues.

Hamzah also said that he met with Malaysian prime minister on Wednesday.

"We have chosen three cores which we will be focusing our efforts on, one of them is the General Operations Force (GOF).

"There are GOF posts around our borders and we are going to make them function like police stations.

"People in these rural areas can go to these posts to report cases and they will refer these cases to the relevant police headquarters" said Hamzah.

He said the second core was the System Mortality Integration Data Validation (SPDIM), a smart system partnership with the police.

"The SPDIM system simplifies the death verification process so that people don't experience waiting in long lines when reporting a death," said Hamzah.

"Through the SPDIM, they can report the death at a police station and all relevant documents will be given to them there so that they only need to go to the National Registration Department to collect the death certificate," he added

Hamzah said the third core was to make e-Visa applications available to visitors from at least 35 countries.

"For now it is only available to 10 countries and those from other countries have to travel to the nearest embassy to apply for a visa" said Hamzah.

"We want to open e-Visas for at least 35 countries as this will help spur economic growth via our tourism sector," he added.

Copyright: The Star/ Asia News Network