KUALA LUMPUR: The management of the recruitment and employment of foreign workers in Sabah and Sarawak from 2017 to 2019 has been found to be inefficient, although it was done based on the needs of the permitted sectors.
According to the Auditor General’s Report (LKAN) 2019 Series 2 tabled in the Dewan Rakyat today, the audit detected inefficiencies in the Check Out Memo (COM) records and the issuance of Temporary Employment Visit Passes (PLKS).
“Other than that, is the intrusion of internal control and security on the Malaysian Immigration System (MyIMMs) operated by the Malaysian Immigration Department (JIM) in both states.
“For COM, for example, JIM Sabah issued a total of 24,880 during the period but only 14,481 foreign workers who filled the COM were found to have left Malaysia, while another 10,399 people had no record of having left the country,” according to the report.
LKAN found that JIM Sarawak issued 25,905 COMs for the period but further audit analysis found that 9,010 out of 25,905 foreign workers who filled out COMs were recorded to have left Malaysia while another 16,895 people had no record of having left Malaysia.
The report also revealed that although revenue collected from the recruitment and employment of foreign workers in Sabah amounted to RM421.71 million and Sarawak (RM522.32 million) during the period, 1.5 per cent of 1,911 foreign workers in Sabah who failed health checks were issued with PLKS.
“In Sarawak, 47,838 or 36 per cent of the 133,134 PLKS issued by the state JIM do not have licence information to prove that employers have applied for a licence from the Department of Labour Sarawak to hire and employ foreign workers,” according to the report.
Regarding the MyIMMs System, the report said a total of 37 and 1,137 security stickers respectively at JIM Sabah and Sarawak were forged in 2019 and 2017, following ID abuse and network intrusion.
To overcome the weaknesses, the audit recommended several measures to JIM Sabah and Sarawak, including ensuring that the issuance of PLKS complied with the rules and guidelines set, so as not to expose the country to security risks and the spread of infectious diseases.
In addition, JIM has been recommended to update the control of COM records of foreign workers leaving the country, as well as enhance the control of the MyIMMs System to address security intrusions that affected the operations of the department as well national security. – Bernama
