MEF: End of HRDF levy contribution’s a good move
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), an opponent of the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) welcomed the move to end the pool fund programme.
President Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan said employers preferred for all levy contributions be available for use for training of their respective employees.
“There is no need for an alternative to the consolidated fund.
“What the HRDF can do from now is to allow the employers to use the funds that they had contributed to train their own employees instead of contributing that 30% to some other account that might not even be utilised for their employees training.
“So now it should be 100% used for the contributors’ employees’ training,” said Shamsuddin.
He suggested that HRDF allow contributions to be utilised for certified trainings so that the employees can go for the Malaysian Skills Certificate (SKM) scheme.
“By doing this, employees can have a certificate to show for the skills that they obtained from their company,” he said.
Past chairman and committee member of digital skills sectorial training of HRDF Imran Kunalan said the consolidated fund could assist in making local talents ready with global certifications leading to better productivity and income.
He said that the fund also ensured that there is a dedicated training allocation for employees, adding that a large number of companies either do not have a training fund, or would slash it to save company budget.
“Instead of just removing the pool fund, I believe that the ministry and the HRDF should focus on the management.
“If you ask if the pool fund is needed, I would say yes,” said Imran.
He said that based on his experience in the committee, there was no issue of frivolous or unnecessary programmes being conducted by the HRDF.
The committee had a structured process of recommending which training programmes should be rolled out and this was done after proper research was carried out on the skill sets needed by employees.