KUALA LUMPUR: DAP's Charles Santiago has called on the government to promote transparency in the recruitment of migrant workers by dismantling Bestinet Sdn Bhd and eliminating labour brokers.
"(The government must) dismantle Bestinet portal. It's controlled by a major labour broker.
"The recruitment process must be open and transparent in both countries," the former Klang member of Parliament said in a statement on Facebook.
Bestinet is an IT company that manages the government's Foreign Workers Centralised Management System, which oversees the recruitment of migrant workers.
Bestinet's founder was accused by a labor agency in Dhaka of persuading the government to limit the number of agencies that supply Bangladeshi workers to only 25.
In response, in July last year, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission raided the company.
Santiago said the management of the recruitment of foreign workers should be shifted from the Home Ministry and Human Resources Ministry to the Prime Minister's Office.
"(There should be a) department chaired by Prime Minister (Datuk Seri) Anwar Ibrahim and headed by a former judge, CEO (chief executive officer) or a retired senior government servant," he said.
He also urged the government to publicise the findings of the 2019 Special Committee on Foreign Workers Management report chaired by Court of Appeal judge Datuk Seri Mohd Hishammudin Yunus.
"Migrant workers' management could have been improved by leaps and bounds, but alas, we rather pay the price of inaction," he said.
