Rishi Adhikari, Nepal´s ambassador to Malaysia, told myrepublica.com that Malaysian officials have announced they would not employ foreign migrants as security guards any more, to expand employment opportunities for locals. For the last couple of years, Malaysia had been giving priority to Nepalis in security work. [break]
The Malaysian government is bringing in a plan to hire people from Rela, a paramilitary volunteers corps for locals, in the security sector. So, job openings in this sector for foreign migrants are virtually closed, according to Adhikari. The work force under Rela is recorded at over one million in the country.
He said Malaysian officials have also complained that documents submitted by a huge number of Nepali security guards were found to be fake.
“Documents submitted by over 1,200 Nepali guards were found to be fake and most of them were not from police or military backgrounds,” Adhikari added.
The Malaysian government has been launching a sweeping crackdown on illegal migrants. During February and March alone around 500 Nepalis were arrested in different part of the country.
Bernama.com, an official news portal of the Malaysian government, quoted Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S Subramaniam as saying only Malaysians could be hired as security as the government would no longer hire foreign security guards.
According to Subramaniam, there are still about 4,000 foreign guards employed in Malaysia and they are sourced mainly from Nepal, Indonesia and the Philippines.
“We want to give more opportunities to Malaysians; that is one of the reasons why we are pushing for a pay hike for security guards,” he said.
A decision on the government´s proposed pay hike for security guards in the private sector will be taken this week with effect from July 1.
Any employer intending to hire foreign jobseekers as security guards in Malaysia would have to furnish convincing reasons for hiring them once the government enforces the new system.
According to him, 125 Nepalis are in different detention camps awaiting deportation and other punishment for overstaying their visas and for involvement in criminal activities.
According to Immigration Department statistics, more than 1.91 million foreign workers were employed in the country as of the end of 2009.
According to Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wira Abu Seman Yusop, migrant workers from Indonesia were the biggest in number at 991,940, followed by 319,020 from Bangladesh, 182,668 from Nepal, 139,731 from Myanmar and 122,382 from India. Officials said the number of foreign workers staying illegally in the country is still unrecorded.
“But the government estimates that there are 1.9 million illegals in the country, going by the calculation that for every legal foreign worker there is one illegal,” Yusop said in the Malaysian parliament.
A total of 68,76 Nepalis have left for Malaysia since mid-August, 2009.
By the end of the year 2008/9, the total number of workers reaching Malaysia touched 455,665.
Foreign employment agencies in Nepal said around 400,000 Nepalis are estimated to be in Malaysia--the second largest destination for Nepalis after Saudi Arabia.
However, Ambassador Adhikari claimed that the total number of Nepalis staying in Malaysia was around 200,000 and those staying without permits does not exceed 20,000.
The Malaysian government allows the recruitment of foreign workers for positions like cooks and cleaners and as workers at island resorts.
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