KUCHING, April 4: The Sarawak Cabinet has given the green light for the recruitment of foreign workers from additional source countries other than Indonesia.
Deputy Minister in Premier’s Department (Labour, Immigration and Project Monitoring) Dato Gerawat Gala said the decision was made by the Cabinet on March 23, 2023.
“The Sarawak Cabinet has given approval for additional source countries for foreign general workers other than Indonesia, namely Bangladesh, Nepal, India and the Philippines subject to terms and conditions to be specified.
“With these additional source countries, employers will now have the option to recruit foreign workers from these countries to meet their requirements,” he said in a statement recently.
He also disclosed that his ministry had organised a review of the internal processes for the hiring of foreign general workers which was jointly conducted by Jabatan Tenaga Kerja (JTK), Jabatan Immigration Malaysia Sarawak (JIM) and the Immigration and Labour Management Unit (ILMU).
The review, he said, has streamlined the internal processes to reduce approval time for the hiring of foreign workers from 90 days previously to 45 days up to the issuance of the calling visa for workers by JIM.
“To further improve this process, my ministry’s proposal for the engagement of a vendor to develop an end-to-end digital platform to digitise all the components relating to the processing of foreign worker applications was approved by the Sarawak Cabinet on March 23.
“This digital platform will enable employers to do online applications and monitor the progress of their applications online, including getting online approvals. This will significantly reduce the approval time for foreign workers, enhance transparency, ensure integrity of the process for foreign worker applications and enable the enforcement and regulatory authorities to effectively monitor the entry and movement of foreign workers within Sarawak.
“The system is expected to be onstream by end of this year,” he added.
Gerawat was responding to Sarawak Timber Association (STA) chairman Dato Henry Lau’s recent statement through the local newspapers calling for the Sarawak government to hasten the entry process for foreign workers.
“Whilst the government is doing its part to assist the employers with their Approved Permit (AP) applications for foreign workers, it is the sole responsibility of the employers to source and hire their workers,” Gerawat stressed.
According to the deputy minister, the Sarawak government has approved a total of 103,207 APs from January to December 2022 but employers have only utilised 34,010 of these approved APs, leaving a balance of 69,197 approved APs not utilised.
For the timber industry, 250 APs were approved in 2022 and only 24 of these were utilised leaving a balance of 226 unutilised APs.
In 2023 (January to March 2023), 280 APs were approved for the timber industry all of which have yet to be utilised. — DayakDaily
