PHOTO: TheEdgeMalaysia.
FORMER Human Resources Minister M. Kula Segaran said that dividing the management of foreign workers between the Home Ministry and Human Resources Ministry is not just inefficient but also counterproductive.
In a statement today, he highlighted that the committee’s comprehensive study on foreign workers had explicitly recommended the Human Resources Ministry as the sole authority responsible for handling foreign workers.
Kula Segaran, who is now a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms), has urged for the immediate establishment of a task force to put into action the suggestions detailed in the newly declassified report on foreign worker management.
The task force should consist of experts, stakeholders, and representatives from relevant sectors to guarantee the prompt and efficient implementation of the recommended actions.
He said, the current arrangement, in which two ministries have joint responsibility for overseeing foreign workers, is not advantageous for the country, due to the overlapping of functions and the potential for corruption to infiltrate the system.
He further stressed that assigning exclusive oversight of foreign workers to the Human Resources Ministry is in line with global standards and will lead to a more effective, open, and unified system.
Kula said the appropriate authorities must act swiftly and give priority to carrying out the suggestions detailed in the report.
The report was drafted when he was the HR minister in the Pakatan Harapan government from 2018.
Originally classified in 2019, it was eventually made public on the HR Ministry’s website in October.
-BTS Media
