PETALING JAYA: The Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, especially DAP leaders, has contributed to the current manpower shortages experienced by the country today, said Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan.
According to Saravanan, PH had imposed a moratorium on the intake of foreign workers from Bangladesh in September 2019, and refused to renew memoranda of understanding (MoU) with other source countries, The Vibes reports.
Responding to DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng’s recent criticism of him, Saravanan said PH was the root cause of the nation’s foreign labour shortage as it minimised the entry of Bangladeshi workers when it held federal power for 22 months.
Saravanan also added that Lim may be harping on the issue of foreign labour shortages, but the actual employers of the workers had not raised any grievances with the ministry.
“I don’t see any big players like Sime Darby or FGV making any complaints. They have not made any complaints about not receiving any quotas at all.
“During PH’s administration, not a single MoU was renewed even though the one with Bangladesh had lapsed during its time. It should not take 22 months to renew any MoU,” Saravanan said in an interview with The Vibes and several other media outlets yesterday.
Meanwhile, a spokesman from FGV Holdings Bhd said the company is not experiencing any issues with gaining approvals for foreign workers, adding that it has not made any complaints to the ministry on the matter.
The spokesman told the portal that so far, FGV has received approvals for 10,000 workers and that 4,000 have arrived in the country.