This is written by my colleague Farah Naz Karim.
PUTRAJAYA: Employers of illegal foreigners in the country will not have to fork out a single sen to register their workers as the Immigration Department has given an undertaking that it will provide free registration.
However, if they opted for the services of 336 companies appointed by the department to ease the department’s workload, they would have to pay RM35 as registration fee and another RM300 for management cost for each foreign worker.
Home Ministry deputy secretary-general Datuk Alwi Ibrahim said 37 Immigration offices throughout the country would be open from 8am to 10pm, including on Saturdays and Sundays, to facilitate a smooth registration exercise that would go on until July 31.
The department and the companies it appointed would start registering these workers from Aug 1, for two weeks.
Asked whether the department could handle the massive registration exercise, Alwi was optimistic that it could. “Should there be an overwhelming demand for the free service, the department is ready to extend the exercise.” This need, he qualified, would be assessed on a weekly basis, depending on the number of illegals who remained unregistered.
Alwi acknowledged that some of the appointed companies “have been charging exorbitant fees of up to RM2,000 per illegal worker”. It is learned that some of the companies had appointed runners to identify and approach illegal workers to offer them the companies’ services.
“That is why we need to spread the information that the fee is just RM335 in total. We have also told the relevant embassies to inform their citizens who stay here illegally of the actual charges,” he said at a press briefing to clarify issues arising from the announcement of the amnesty programme which comes under the ministry’s initiative dubbed the ‘6P’. During this period, illegal foreign workers and their employers will be spared legal prosecution.
The 6P programme comprises registration, legalisation, amnesty, supervision, enforcement and deportation. The amnesty exercise would be for a period of three months after the registration process. There are an estimated two million illegal foreign workers in the country, almost equal to the number of those working legally in the country.
Alwi said he would also look into reports which said many Immigration Department branches referred employers wishing to register their workers over the last two days to the Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya offices. On the registration of legal workers, as of yesterday, some 7,600 of them had been documented, he said.
PUTRAJAYA: Employers of illegal foreigners in the country will not have to fork out a single sen to register their workers as the Immigration Department has given an undertaking that it will provide free registration.
However, if they opted for the services of 336 companies appointed by the department to ease the department’s workload, they would have to pay RM35 as registration fee and another RM300 for management cost for each foreign worker.
The department and the companies it appointed would start registering these workers from Aug 1, for two weeks.
Asked whether the department could handle the massive registration exercise, Alwi was optimistic that it could. “Should there be an overwhelming demand for the free service, the department is ready to extend the exercise.” This need, he qualified, would be assessed on a weekly basis, depending on the number of illegals who remained unregistered.
Alwi acknowledged that some of the appointed companies “have been charging exorbitant fees of up to RM2,000 per illegal worker”. It is learned that some of the companies had appointed runners to identify and approach illegal workers to offer them the companies’ services.
“That is why we need to spread the information that the fee is just RM335 in total. We have also told the relevant embassies to inform their citizens who stay here illegally of the actual charges,” he said at a press briefing to clarify issues arising from the announcement of the amnesty programme which comes under the ministry’s initiative dubbed the ‘6P’. During this period, illegal foreign workers and their employers will be spared legal prosecution.
The 6P programme comprises registration, legalisation, amnesty, supervision, enforcement and deportation. The amnesty exercise would be for a period of three months after the registration process. There are an estimated two million illegal foreign workers in the country, almost equal to the number of those working legally in the country.
Alwi said he would also look into reports which said many Immigration Department branches referred employers wishing to register their workers over the last two days to the Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya offices. On the registration of legal workers, as of yesterday, some 7,600 of them had been documented, he said.
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