Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) executive director Shamsuddin Bardan explained that as a result, there were people who wanted to “protect” the system.

“It is better to have a system that functions more on a government-to-government (G2G) kind of arrangement,” he said, adding that this approach would yield a cost of approximately RM4,000 per migrant worker.

“But in the current system, the cost can easily exceed RM10,000 per worker.”

Shamsuddin said this tonight during a forum on the country’s labour shortage.

On levy collection, Shamsuddin suggested that the annual sum collected, estimated at about RM4 billion, be channelled back to employers.

“Currently the government is using it as their revenue, it’s been placed in a consolidated account.”

Shamsuddin said as it was the employers who paid the levy, it was only fair to give back to them to improve their respective industries through upskilling and preparing for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0).

“I’m sure if we are able to do that, in the long run our own people will be able to increase their productivity and the number of migrant workers in the country will be kept to a minimum.”

Fellow panellist, Subang MP Wong Chen agreed with Shamsuddin’s point on excessive commercialisation in the recruitment process.

“I’m getting direct feedback from industry operators that there are major ‘traffic jams’ for appointments in Putrajaya,” he said, referring to sudden rescheduling and failure to communicate new appointment dates and times.

“There’s obviously a lot of money being made,” he said. “The cost should be about RM5,000 but (because of) a lack of transparency, it’s now RM15,000.”