Yesterday, I had asked Minister in the Prime Minister‘s Department Dato Wee Ka Siong two key questions with regard to his comments on MyEGand foreign workers which were reported by Chinapress.
The report titled “Wee said: Afraid that foreign workers population will exceed Chinese population, utilizing MyEG statistics to monitor the inflow and outflow of foreign workers” had quoted him as saying that the intention of the government of implementing MyEG online renewal of foreign worker permits was to allow the government to effectively monitor their movements whether coming into or leaving the country.
He also pointed out that their numbers already exceeded that of Indians and it was afraid that they could overtake the Chinese population too unless controlled.
I had questioned Wee on the reason given by him for implementing MyEG online renewal as it was never mentioned by the Home Ministry which had in a statement on January 10 clarified that the implementation was to check abuse by various parties and to shorten the application process to one or two days compared to two to four weeks and to reduce crowding at the Immigration Department’s counters.
So why had he come up with such an illogical reason as the immigration department could always implement the online system instead of outsourcing it to MyEG.
I had also asked why he had to give the issue a racial context by comparing the foreign workers population with Chinese population.
Wee has made along reply and accused me of twisting his words about the racial context with the purpose of attacking the government and MyEG, and turning the Chinese against MCA.
It has often been said that some people like to hide their real motives with words. It appears that Wee is trying to do so with many and angry words.
I wish to ask Wee a very simple question—would the Prime Minister Dato Seri Najib say that he is afraid that the foreign worker population could exceed the Chinese population if he is to talk about the security threat posed by too many foreign workers in the country?
It is also interesting to note that Wee did not say that he was misquoted by the paper.
Neither did Wee reply to my other point, which is, if it was necessary to have an online permit renewal system to effectively monitor the inflow and outflow of foreign workers, why could not the immigration department implement it?
Teresa Kok