Poor response from bosses to workers registration

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KOTA KINABALU: The response from employers to the biometric registration of foreign workers has not been encouraging, according to State Secretary Datuk Seri Panglima Sukarti Wakiman.

He said the Sabah Immigration Department has only managed to register 69.4 per cent of the 70,550 foreign plantation workers due to the lack of cooperation from their employers despite carrying out an outreach programme in the three main districts namely Tawau, Lahad Datu and Sandakan.

“Registration exercise through the outreach programme was launched on Oct 3 and was called off on Oct 15 due to the poor response from plantation owners.

“During the period, only 48,996 foreign plantation workers were registered from the three districts,” he said in a statement, yesterday.

Sukarti said the foreign plantation workers in the three districts make up 68.67 percent of the 102,735 workers registered under the sector.

The State Government conducted the Legal Foreign Workers Registration Programme under the 5P (Registration, Amnesty, Monitoring, Enforcement and Repatriation) Programme, between Oct 3 and 31, where all foreign employees would be registered under the biometric system.

“Those who are not registered by end of this month will have to go to the Immigration Department on their own.

“Those who have been registered will be issued the Temporary Working Visit Pass by the Immigration Department for both Indonesians and Filipinas who are working as maids as well as workers in the agriculture, plantation, construction, manufacturing and service sectors,” said Sukarti.

To date, some 323,576 foreigners have been registered, including their 86,188 dependents.

“As of Oct 18, the Immigration Department has registered a total of 52,188 or 22 per cent from the overall 237,388 foreign workers and 13.3 per cent or 11,537 people of the dependents under the biometric system,” said Sukarti.

He, therefore, urged employers to be cooperative and register their foreign employees under the biometric system before the end of this month.