KOTA KINABALU: One hundred and eighty-nine employers in Sabah are urged to come forward to pay the compound fees involving 25,072 workers who have been approved under the 3+1 programme of the Immigration Department.
Sabah immigration director, Datuk Mohammad Mentek, reminded that the said employers would only be given two weeks grace starting Feb 18 before the approvals are cancelled.
“Under the 3+1 programme, a RM300 compound fee was introduced for each worker followed by a special pass at RM100. Under normal regulations, workers who have documentation problems will be issued a compound fee of RM3,000 per person,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.
“We have received 49,658 applications, of which 46,372 have been approved. This means that 3,286 applications were rejected due to several factors such as quotas that have not been renewed and applicants who are over the age limit of 48 years.”
Of the approved applications, 36,917 were required to pay the RM300 compound fee. However, to date, only 11,845 has come forward to settle the payment, he said.
Mohammad added that employers could act as guarantors for their workers in order for them to obtain a temporary work pass (PLKS) after the compound fees have been paid.
He said 3,372 have been approved to obtain PLKS and the department was only waiting for payments from the workers to issue the PLKS.
To date, 2,495 PLKS have been issued, while 842 approved PLKS have yet to be given out as the employers have not made payments for the recipients.
“Hence, we would advise employers to immediately come forward in the next two weeks starting tomorrow (February 18) to settle the payments.”
Also present at the press conference was the newly appointed deputy Sabah immigration director (management services sector) Nik Mohd Azrul Abdul Ghaffar.