KUCHING: Minister of Human Resources Dato Sri Richard Riot Jaem clarified that 12,000 Bangladeshi workers coming to the state will be for the plantation sector alone and not for various sectors as reported by various news agencies a few days ago.
Dato Sri Richard Riot Jaem
He elaborated these workers were sent here at the request from plantation companies in the state for the oil palm sector to do jobs categorised as 3Ds – Dirty, Difficult and Dangerous.
“These job are shunned by locals and we need these workers to clear the fruit bunches at these plantations,” he told reporters here yesterday.
“These workers will come in stages after government to government arrangement and these workers must be free of criminal record, medically fit for employment and not carry any contagious diseases,” he added.
Riot said it was always the government’s policy to give job priority to locals but since there was a shortage of locals for the plantation sector, it was compelled to bring in foreigners.
He said as this was a government-to-government arrangement, the recruitment process of the Bangladeshi workers was carried out without involvement of a third party, outsourcing company or employer and this prevented profiteering from human trafficking and smuggling activities.
Under the International Labour Organisation (ILO) law, these Bangladeshi workers will get
the same minimum wage of the locals – RM800.
He said his ministry would finalise the decision to bring in these Bangladeshi workers after a meeting between the federal, Bangladesh and the state governments on Nov 5 in Kuala Lumpur.
“The most interesting thing is that a country like Bangladesh can despatch 1.4 million workers throughout the world at one time.”
Riot said that the state’s current rate of unemployment is 2.3 per cent as compared to the 2.8 per cent at national level, and by ILO law, this was considered as zero unemployment.