I read the news reports on the MOU on maid intake between Malaysia and Indonesia with great amusement. Both Human Resources Minister Savaranan and Home Minister Hamzah Zainuddin seem to be at great odds in reaching an agreement on this issue. Malaysia is now a laughing stock.
Minister Saravanan made announcement that the Domestic Worker MOU with Indonesia will be signed on 8 February in Bali, but it was called off as Indonesia is not convinced with the commitment of Malaysia on safeguarding workers’ rights. According to the Indonesian Ambassador Hermono, the immigration department has been present at only a select few negotiation meetings.
We then read about the spat between Hamzah Zainuddin and Indonesian Ambassador Hermono. Hamzah claimed he had reached a consensus with his Indonesian counterpart during his working visit to Indonesia last month (FMT 10 Feb 2022). But Ambassador Hermono said “there was no meeting held with the minister in charge of Indonesia’s immigration during Hamzah’s Jakarta working visit”. The Minister he should have met the Law and Human Rights Minister and not the indonesian Home Minister who has nothing to do with the MOU as reported by (Malaysiakini 11 February 2022).
What is wrong with our Home Minister? How is it that he did not know that the minister in charge of Labour and Domestic Workers – dealing on the MOU with Malaysia in Indonesia, is not Home affairs minister? Isn’t this the basic information that Hamzah should know?
On top of that, Hamzah Zainuddin seems to be sabotaging the discussion between Saravanan and Indonesia. Ambassador Hermono said while the Human Resources Ministry of Malaysia and Indonesia were discussing the flow chart of One Channel System (OCS), suddenly the Malaysian Immigration Department issued a new policy for entries using MyTravelPass, which is inconsistent with the draft MOU for entries from Indonesia to Malaysia which states that it will only be through the OCS. (Malaysiakini 11 February 2022)
Indonesia had also tied the intake of non-domestic workers to the Domestic Workers MOU with Malaysia. As long as this MOU is not finalized, it will affect the intake of workers in other fields too. In view of the many sectors in Malaysia such as plantation, manufacturing and construction are in dire need of workers, it is important for the government to sign the Domestic Workers MOU with Indonesia as soon as possible, so that it doesn’t delay the intake of Indonesian labour for other industries.
Since Hamzah Zainuddin and Saravanan are having problems working together on the Domestic Workers MOU with Indonesia, I urge Prime Minister Ismail Sabri to intervene and take over the negotiations with Indonesia, and save Malaysia from the current embarrassment.
On top of that, Malaysia is among the few countries in the world whose migrant workers are managed by two different ministries and such management has created a lot of inconvenience to the employers and employees.
It is also high time that Malaysia let Human Resources Ministry to be the one-stop-center to handle foreign labour matters to prevent the clash between Human Resources Ministry and Home Ministry from happening again.
Teresa Kok