Malaysia to halve number of Indonesian workers

Malaysia to halve number of Indonesian workers

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia plans to reduce by half the number of registered Indonesian workers here to prevent a repeat of recent riots, officials said Sunday.

Secretary-General of the Home (Interior) Ministry, Aseh Che Mat, said there were currently some 900,000 Indonesian legal workers, which the government planned to cut down to about 450,000.

Another official report says there are about 740,000 registered foreign workers in Malaysia, including 566,000 Indonesians. But an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants also live here, often working in low-paid manual labor jobs.

"The issue we are facing now is their numbers are too large ... if anything (happens) we cannot control them," he was quoted by the official Bernama news agency as saying.

The preventive measure runs alongside the government's announcement of a temporary ban on hiring new Indonesian workers, following the recent outbreak of riots.

More than 100 Indonesian workers took part in the Jan. 17 unrest, overturning vehicles and pelting police with chairs, tables, bottles and stones.

Last Sunday, more than 70 Indonesian construction workers armed with machetes went on the rampage at Cyberjaya, south of Kuala Lumpur, just three days after some 400 Indonesian textile workers launched a protest at their factory over drug tests.

Aseh said the blacklisting of Indonesian workers, who would be placed as a last option for employment, also meant replacing Indonesians with workers from other countries when their contracts expired.

"New (work) permits will be limited to cases where the employer cannot hire workers from another country while for Indonesians who have ended their contracts, employers have to replace them with workers from another country," he said.

"Those that want to apply, go ahead ... we put the (Indonesian) workers as a last option."

Following the reduction, he said employers could now take in workers from Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam and Laos, while domestic help could now be hired from Sri Lanka.

Aseh was also quoted as saying Malaysia would not build additional depots for illegal immigrants as the government planned to hold deportation exercises daily.

"We have long started to send them home, and right now we are deporting them every day.

"We do not want to hold them for long as this is a burden. We have to pay for their meals and also their transportation costs," he said.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Saturday he would not bow to appeals from Jakarta in reversing the temporary ban.

Mahathir said Malaysia did not need to take in any more Indonesians as the country already had a surplus of foreign workers.

"In fact, we have more than enough, what more with those entering the country illegally," he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz on Friday said the government would try to appeal against the ban.

"We need to approach Malaysia because it is our neighbor and work opportunities are great there," he said.

Meanwhile, prosecutors will charge 15 Indonesians with rioting and illegal assembly after workers clashed with police, news reports said Sunday.

Malaysia's attorney general decided to level the charges after studying evidence from the clash, according to reports in the Sunday Star and New Sunday Times newspapers.

Rioting is punishable by up to two years in prison, while illegal assembly carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail.

Four of the workers face an additional charge of causing mischief during a riot, which is punishable by a maximum five- year prison sentence, the papers reported.

It was not immediately clear why the 15 were being charged, since 129 other Indonesian workers allegedly involved in the factory riot have already been deported without being brought to trial.

Phones at the attorney general's chambers rang unanswered Sunday.