KUALA LUMPUR: Recruitment of foreign labour should come under the purview of the Human Resources Ministry so that the number of foreign workers coming into the country can be controlled and monitored.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said while it was the Home Ministry that handled the visas and entry of foreign workers, his ministry was responsible for their management.

He said it was difficult to control and monitor foreign labour in the country because the system entrusted the outsourcing of foreign labour to 227 companies.

The outsourcing companies get their licences from the Immigration Department (which is under the Home Ministry) to recruit the workers.

Subramaniam said this yesterday after witnessing the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Skills Development Department and Quality Weld Academy.
The minister was responding to the statement by the Immigration Department's enforcement director, Datuk Ishak Mohamed, in the New Sunday Times that the recruitment of foreign labour fell under the purview of the Home Ministry.

Ishak had said foreign labour outsourcing was the best way for the government to manage foreign workers and to attract foreign direct investment.

Subramaniam said the present system had made it difficult to reduce the number of foreign workers in the country. There are 2.1 million legitimate foreign workers, and another one million without work permits.

"The Human Resources Ministry should be managing the foreign labour requirement. The ministry should be able to tell if the workers are needed or not. Foreign labour management should come under the ministry's purview.

"Once the ministry has decided whether the foreign workers are needed, only then should visas and work permits be handled by the Immigration Department."

Subramaniam said both ministries were discussing the matter and hoped to arrive at a solution soon.

He added the government wanted to reduce its dependency on foreign workers, adding that it was a decision by the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Workers.

Some of the measures considered were increasing automation and improving the skills of local workers.

The government had allocated RM100 million under the Ninth Malaysia Plan's Mid-Term Review to train 15,000 local workers in various fields.