Malaysia’s bid to revamp hiring of overseas staff faces pushback; activists say nation’s repute at stake | USAEMALL.com

RAIDED IN 2023

Bestinet is no stranger to controversy. 

In 2018, it was embroiled in allegations its affiliates had benefited to a tune of RM185 million between 2013 and 2018 from Nepali workers seeking to work in Malaysia. The Malaysian government suspended Bestinet’s operations, but cleared it of wrongdoing the following year.

In May 2023, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested several government officials at the Human Resource Ministry in connection with a corruption investigation involving the recruitment of migrant workers from Bangladesh. Weeks later, it raided Bestinet and questioned a number of its executives, including its controlling shareholder Mr Mohamed Amin.

So far, nothing has emerged from the MACC probe, but the Anwar administration has transferred the governance of the migrant worker procurement ecosystem from the Human Resource Ministry to the direct purview of the powerful Home Affairs Minister Saifuddin.

Mr Mohamed Amin, a former Bangladesh national who has taken up Malaysian citizenship, is said to enjoy close ties with top civil servants and politicians including Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. It was during Mr Ahmad Zahid’s tenure as Home Minister under the previous Najib administration that Bestinet secured the concession to operate its FWCMS platform.

But the company’s relations with the Home Ministry under Mr Saifuddin has been less-than-cosy.

Mr Saifuddin has made no secret of his displeasure with the current migrant labour recruitment system. During an official visit to Bangladesh in February last year, Mr Saifuddin met with members of the Bangladeshi Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) in Dhaka. He acknowledged he was unhappy with the recruitment systems in place and that elements of graft needed to be wiped out.

BAIRA has more than 1,500 members operating in the country but only 100 agencies with close ties to Bestinet and accredited by the Malaysian government have a stranglehold on the recruitment of workers to Malaysia. 

BAIRA’s chairman Mohammed Abul Basher told CNA that the government is handling negotiations with Malaysia directly over the plan to revamp the current recruitment process. He declined to elaborate.

UNSCRUPULOUS AGENTS, BROKERS

Malaysia’s foreign labour recruitment system had long been a hotbed of unscrupulous agents and labour brokers working with counterparts in countries providing the manpower. 

In a bid to bring more order to the labour recruitment sector, the government of now-jailed former premier Najib Razak awarded Bestinet a contract in 2013 to assist the Home Affairs and Human Resource ministries in the recruitment of foreign labour for Malaysian companies.

Under the so-called FWCMS, companies in various sectors of the economy would submit applications on their labour needs and Bestinet would help in the sourcing from 15 countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines, Myanmar, India and Vietnam.

But the FWCMS platform did not stem mismanagement, resulting in foreign labour applicants being exploited by a convoluted set of players in both the host and exporting countries.