Bosses looking elsewhere now

Some pay more, others manage without maid

PETALING JAYA: Fed-up with the long wait to hire Indonesian maids, many employers are being forced to fork out more to engage maids from other countries or spend their weekends cleaning their houses.

It may not be the most suitable solution, but the employers say it is better to get on with life than to wait in uncertainty.

A 55-year-old senior marketing manager, Ng Chee Keong, was one of those who has been on the waiting list for about two months to get an Indonesian maid to care for his 82year-old mother.

Both Ng and his wife work. Weekends are spent cleaning the house.

“My mother is being taken care of by my sister now, but she is also working. We have no choice but to pay extra to get a maid from the Philippines,” he said.

He added that engaging the Filipino maid would cost RM1,200 a month, compared to RM700 to hire an Indonesian maid.

Student Poh Jen Soon, 21, said her family had gone without a maid for the last two years and were doing all right.

“Of course it was much easier when the maid was around.

“It is more work for us now, but there is a positive side to not having a maid. We have become more responsible,” said Poh.

She added that the family was relieved they did not have to put up with the antics of some problematic maids.

“Our last maid did not clean the house properly and claimed that she could not see well. She also said she felt sick most of the time.

“But, when we took her to the clinic, the doctor said she was fine,” said Poh.

Malaysian Maid Employers’ Association president Engku Ahmad Fauzi Engku Muhsein said that as an alternative to Indonesian maids, some employers had turned to getting maids from countries like Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam reiterated that Malaysia would not veer from the contents of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with Indonesia on the supply of the maids.

“We have told them to stick to the agreement,” Dr Subramaniam said at the Socso headquarters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.