Din Syamsuddin calls for dissolution of Apjati

JAKARTA (JP): Director General of Manpower Placement and Development Din Syamsuddin called on labor export companies on Monday to set up a consortia in place of the longstanding Association of Labor Export Companies (Apjati).

The plea came on the heels of serious feuding between the Ministry of Manpower and Apjati over labor exporters' minimum capital.

"Labor export companies are allowed to make direct contact with the ministry for tackling their problems, but freedom of association allows them also to set up their own consortia to channel their interests," Din said after a ceremony which marked the issuance of new licenses for 146 labor export companies here.

So far, a total of 370 labor export companies have renewed their licenses under the new decree which requires a company to secure Rp 1 billion in minimum capital by June 1. Firms which fail to meet the ruling will be barred from operation.

Apjati has protested the decree and asked Minister of Manpower Bomer Pasaribu and Din to step down because of unprofessionalism.

Din said the consortia should be based on the employment sectors and destination countries so that they could help labor exporters cope with any problems they might be facing.

"We should no longer waste our time over so many useless things as we do now," he said referring to the mounting feud between the ministry and Apjati over the controversial ministerial decree on labor exporters' minimum capital.

Apjati chairman Abdullah Umar deplored Din's statement, saying that the government should no longer intervene in the association's internal affairs because it could cause a division among labor exporters.

"It is the right of every company of whether they want to unionize in a consortia, join Apjati or stay away from organizations," he said.

Umar suspected that Din made the statement in his bid to keep the ministry's dominant role in labor export affairs.

"The government should limit its authority in the policy- making process and provide a better public service to labor exporters and workers to help solve the unemployment problem," he said.

Zeid Arifin, chairman of the consortium of firms exporting laborers to Singapore, said Apjati's role as an umbrella for the existing consortia remained intact.

"It depends on whether labor exporters think Apjati is still relevant or not, and it will be discussed further in Apjati's extraordinary congress later this month," he said.

Immigration

Din criticized the immigration office for lacking in its commitment to provide better service for workers applying for passports to work overseas.

"Frankly speaking, I'm suspicious as to why the immigration office declines to provide a one-stop service for workers, while we frequently receive reports of illegal levies which are imposed on workers who want to work overseas," he said.

Citing an example, Din described the high cost of obtaining passports in Malang, East Java, and the number of workers who go overseas without the required documents.

"In Malang, people who want to work overseas are obliged to pay Rp 400,000 for a passport. This fee is 400 percent more expensive than the standard price," he said.

He said that on Sunday, 40 Indonesian workers who were on their way to Kuwait were stranded at Changi airport in Singapore for not having the proper documents.

"The immigration office is the last stop at airports for checking whether citizens heading abroad have completed the necessary documents," he said.

He acknowledged that the Ministry of Manpower had also committed many errors, but was correcting its mistakes. (rms)