Ways to resolve immigration matters
I READ with utter disappointment and dejection the letters “Vetting at certain points not strict enough” and “Onus on Immigration to process foreigners” ( The Star, July 27).
Everyone knows that our Immigration Department is plagued with various weaknesses and shortcomings which threaten our national security. These very serious and critical problems require immediate corrective action and preventive measures. But they have been around for decades and nothing seems to be done to put and end to them once and for all.
The director-general of Immigration (DGI) may be well aware of these problems which are basically and fundamentally due to lack of enforcement. To be fair, he may indeed be in the process of rectifying all the weaknesses but we cannot wait any longer. He can be sure of the support from the current no-nonsense government and the rakyat at large.
The first step the DGI and Home Affairs Ministry must take without any delay is to take back all immigration matters that were outsourced to agents, sub-agents and organisations and vendors who claimed they are providing invaluable services and online user-friendly systems.
Immigration matters are critical to the nation’s security and hence no one other than the Home Affairs Ministry and Immigration Department should in any way handle any of these matters at any level.
If you have inadequate staff or budget for procuring a world-class system, please ask the Finance Minister and Prime Minister, who would certainly consider your requests favourably as they too know that immigration matters cannot be delegated to third parties.
On another matter, we have schemes that allow expatriates to be brought into the country for jobs that pay as low as RM2,500 per month. These must be abandoned immediately. As expatriates, they receive special treatment and because their salary is so low, they do not pay any taxes. Many employers claim they are unable to hire local skilled workers and bring in these Category III expatriates for jobs such as machining technicians. Their claims are false and far-fetched.
The Immigration Department and Home Affairs Ministry must stop approving expatriate visas for jobs that pay less than RM6,000 per month and ensure that strict vetting is carried out on the qualifications and experience of workers hired for these jobs. They must also ensure that employers provide hard evidence that local talents are not available for such jobs before approving any request for workers in these expatriate positions.
It must also be noted that there are cases of employers submitting forged university degrees and college diplomas of unqualified expatriates and many end up not working in the industry or jobs they had applied for originally. This is due to sheer lack of enforcement.