Published on Daily Express: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 |
East Malaysia Plantation Association (Empa) President Hj. Osman Walad urged enforcement agencies like Police, Immigration and Special Task Force to come up with comprehensive solutions to address this perennial problem of staff pinching.
There have been numerous cases whereby a plantation company brings in and legalises foreign workers, only to find them pinched by other plantation companies, usually at night in pick-ups.
"The enforcement agencies are too slow to act against these companies although reports have been lodged," said Osman, who is also Sawit Kinabalu General Manager.
He urged the enforcement agencies to act without fear or favour against firms caught employing foreign workers that had already been already registered by other companies or are in the process of having this done.
"If one company can get away without any action being taken, others will do the same and there will be chaos in the industry," said Osman, adding that the enforcement agencies must take action as a deterrent to others.
He also urged enforcement agencies to take action where foreign workers registered with plantation companies had absconded and were doing other tasks like selling fish and vegetables in markets or contraband cigarettes.
"Some of them move freely from one town to another without being apprehended. If no action is taken, it will make them even become more bold to the extent of committing crimes," he said.
In this context, Osman welcomed the State Government's move to allow oil palm plantations in Sabah to hire foreign workers from other countries.
So far only workers from Philippines (construction) and Indonesia (plantations and maids) are allowed.
He said the move was timely as the industry is currently hard-pressed in hiring workers from these traditional sources.
"While we are happy with the move, there is still a lot of work to do because we need to meet all the departments concerned and find out how to go about it.
"We cannot just go a country like Bangladesh and bring people here but go through proper procedure," said Osman, and hoped to meet with the Immigration Department and Labour Departments.
Even then, he expects it would take another three months before the latest move is effective.
He said Sabah had been experiencing labour shortage in plantations over the years due to Indonesians not coming anymore on account of expansion of oil palm areas in Kalimantan.
He said shortage of workers in the plantation sector, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, must be addressed immediately as the oil palm industry has become main economic contributors not only Sabah but also Malaysia.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman had on Jan. 18 announced that the State Cabinet decided to allow the recruitment of foreign labour from Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Vietnam to overcome the difficulty in sourcing foreign labour for certain tasks, mainly in the plantation and maid sectors.
However Musa said employees must give priority to locals when hiring workers. Musa also announced abolishment of the "cooling off period" allowing employers to hire their foreign workers continuously for 5 years plus another 5 years. There are 272,157 foreign workers in all sectors in Sabah with the majority from Indonesia and the Philippine.
"Our revenue from oil palm for the country is at RM55 billion per year and Sabah produces 30 per cent of the total production with revenue approximately at RM16.6 billion," said Osman.
With this year's good oil palm price, he projected revenue to soar to RM60 billion and Sabah's output to reach RM18 billion.
He said with that kind of revenue the State Government would stand to gain more than RM1 billion in sales tax, which makes the Oil Palm industry important to Sabah.
On whether the labour shortage is due to increased acreage of oil palm in Sabah, Osman said the acreage increase is minimal but the main problem being that Indonesian workers are not coming as before.
Also the "cooling off period" of 5 months imposed by the Immigration Department before this was a major contributor to the problem as these workers had to return to their country after working 5 years in Sabah.
According to Osman, these workers return to their country they find new jobs in Kalimantan which is now aggressively expanding their oil palm industry.
"These workers are experienced ones and their absence cause a big vacuum which even big organisations like Sawit Kinabalu are experiencing," he said.
This is normal.So long the working environment is OKAY...staff welfare is taken care off...competitive compensation... apa mo tunggu...cari makan mah!!!
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