The handing over of the One Channel System for foreign workers back to the Ministry of Human Resources from the Home Ministry is another example of flip-flopping of government policies that are causing much distress among the business community.
Recently, the new Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar announced that “OCS (One Channel System) is now back under Ministry of Human Resources while the OSC (One Stop Centre) is under Ministry of Home Affairs. Back in February, the management of foreign workers was handed over to MOHR from MOHA. The Malaysian Consortium of Mid Tier Companies president is of the view that since MOHS is the umbrella organisation overseeing the planning, management, and development of Malaysia’s manpower resources, it is appropriate that it manages the entire process for foreign workers recruitment and management as well and leave just the immigration controls to MOHA.
MCMTC questions the need to still have various Ministries with various document submissions. If ease of doing business in Malaysia is what the new government is gunning for, then there should be a single online system transparent and easy to use. The president argues that with such a small population the local industries are still labour-intensive and will be dependent on foreign labour. Currently applying for foreign manpower requires a lot of time, effort and costs to deal with multiple agencies: MOHR, MOHA, JTK (Jabatan Tenaga – Department of Labour, under MOHR) and for those in manufacturing, MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Investment).
The consortium calls for overlapping services in the Ministries to be eliminated as it will only serve to confuse and add unnecessary costs. MCMTC said it stands together with the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM)’s call for a single agency handling the entire foreign worker employment process from end-to-end (recruitment to repatriation) via a single online system to ensure clarity, transparency, and greater efficiency.
