Referring to a document that has gone viral across the internet, he told FMT his office would check for its authenticity.

It is a letter dated March 3 and addressed to the minister. On it is a note supporting the application which the minister said was not his.

Watch the video here.

The letter asks for approval for the recruitment of workers for all sectors without any interview and without being subjected to any ratio ruling, a practice which the home ministry said in January would be stopped.

“No, I have not received such a document,” Saravanan said. “Any letter to me must be stamped with the sender’s name. I do not know who the sender is.

“If it comes from the prime minister’s office, there will be a covering letter from the PM. And if it’s from any other minister, the secretary will attach a covering letter.”

He said he had instructed his office to find out details from the company and “to check whether it is true or not”.

The letter says manpower is badly needed to meet the demands of clients who need workers to ensure that Malaysian firms remain competitive.

FMT is withholding the name of the recruitment agency pending a response from it.

In January, home minister Hamzah Zainudin said that special quotas would no longer be given for the recruitment of foreign workers.

He said every application from employers must now go through the ministry’s evaluation committee to determine the number of foreign workers eligible to be employed in accordance with set terms and conditions.

Hamzah said if recruitment could be carried out freely, foreign workers would simply enter the country without adhering to the conditions set, resulting in various welfare problems.