KL to let 500,000 workers return

KL to let 500,000 workers return

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur/Jakarta

Malaysia approved 500,000 work permits for the construction sector following the recent mass deportation of illegal immigrants which crippled the building industry, the official Bernama news agency said Tuesday.

Deputy Human Resources Minister Abdul Latiff Ahmad said 300,000 of the workers had already entered the country.

"We hope the entry of these workers, especially those from Indonesia, will fill up the void created following the enforcement of the Immigration Act," he said.

Indonesian illegal immigrants made up 70 percent of the building industry's 500,000 foreign workers before the crackdown, according to the Master Builders Association of Malaysia (MBAM).

Many of them were among the more than 380,000 people who left for home during a four-month amnesty ahead of the introduction of tough new penalties for illegal immigrants which came into effect on Aug. 1.

Two weeks later, after property developers warned that building sites were grinding to a halt and project delays would cost millions of dollars, the government reversed a ban on the recruitment of Indonesians for the construction sector.

That ban had been imposed in February after two riots by Indonesian workers, but had no visible effect until the mass exodus of illegal immigrants, which was a separate issue affecting all nationalities.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Manpower and Transmigration Minister Jacob Nuwa Wea said on Tuesday that there were only 16,000 worker refugees (TKIs) living in makeshift camps in Nunukan, East Kalimantan.

He said many Indonesian workers had either returned to their provinces of origin or returned to Malaysia after completing their papers.

"I don't want to call them TKIs, it is better to call them problematic Indonesians," Jacob was quoted by Antara as saying in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara on Tuesday.

He denied suggestions that the government had been sluggish in responding to the workers' needs, saying that long before the deadline the government already warned illegal workers to complete their documents.

"They refused to leave Malaysia until the law took effect," said Jacob, adding that some 100,000 undocumented Indonesian workers were rushing to border areas when the new Immigration Act was implemented on Aug. 1.