125,000 foreign workers in Sabah registered

More than 125,000 foreign workers in Sabah have been successfully registered under the regularization programme in 2019 and 2020, said Sabah Foreign Worker Recruitment Agencies Association (Pappas) president Anthony Leong.

However, he said some 30,000 foreign workers’ passports were still being processed and have yet to be completed as the programme was disrupted by the Movement Control Order (MCO), Conditional MCO (CMCO) and Recovery MCO (RMCO).

Leong said this after a courtesy call on the Special Officer to the Chief Minister, Lo Su Fui, here yesterday.

The objective of the meeting was to brief and convey to Lo in order for the latter to bring to the attention of the Chief

Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Hajiji Noor for actions to be taken to address the problems faced by employers on the shortage of foreign workers in all sectors, particularly the plantation sector in Sabah.

He said a total of 125,572 foreign workers have been successfully registered during the regularization programme in 2019 and 2020.

“It was estimated that 30 percent of the registered foreign workers were of Filipino nationality, who are still waiting for their passports to be completed from their embassy in Kuala Lumpur.”

Pappas manages 95 percent of the foreign workers in Sabah.

Established in 2005, Pappas has 57 registered members from all over Sabah who are Licence C holders from Sabah Labour Department with RM250,000 bank guarantee for foreign workers paid to the department.

Leong (fifth left) handing over a compilation of the issues faced by employers to Lo. Also present were Pappas secretary general Gabriel Lohuban and the executive committee.