Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said previously only 10 agents from that country were allowed to do so and this had resulted in some agents imposing payments as high as RM20,000.
“We want to expand this to all agents, so that there will be competition,” he said today after chairing a meeting in the Parliament building on the management of foreign workers in the country.
Mahathir also said that as a long-term measure, an independent commission would be set up to thoroughly address the issue of foreign workers in the country.
One system would be established to handle all matters related to the hiring of foreign workers, regardless of the country of origin, he added.
Also present were Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran and Deputy Rural Development Minister R Sivarasa.
On the issue surrounding Bestinet, Kulasegaran said the services of the company had been suspended and that the government would sign a memorandum of understanding with Nepal to resolve the issue.
“The MoU has already been approved in principle by Nepal. I will take it to the Cabinet for the necessary approval, before I go there to get the necessary things done.
“Nepal is interested in sending its workers here, and we are interested in receiving its workers. Bestinet has been suspended, so they will not be supplying their services,” he added.
Kulasegaran had previously told the Dewan Rakyat that Bestinet was in charge of biomedical checks and that the Nepali government was investigating the company for money laundering through its Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS), which had no approval from Kathmandu.
Before this, The Nepali Times news portal, in a report titled “Kleptocrats of Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur”, had alleged that a nexus of politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats in Nepal and Malaysia had made huge profits from vulnerable Nepali migrant workers seeking work in Malaysia.
As a result, the Nepali government was reported to have put an immediate stop to its citizens coming to Malaysia for jobs as it was unhappy with the tight immigration rules imposed on the potential migrant workers.
This was said to include the monopoly of a private company in conducting security and health checks as part of the visa requirements. Bestinet subsequently refuted the allegations.
On the commission to address the issue of foreign workers in the country, Mahathir said it would comprise senior officers and former judges, with the Institute of Labour Market Information and Analysis (Ilmia) as the secretariat.
“The commission will holistically look at policies and the management of foreign workers in the country.
“There are too many migrant workers coming and there are those coming in illegally. We need to tackle this. There are so many problems to address,” he added.