Mega Projects Need Foreign Workers: PKMM

The mega development projects that are planned for the convenience and well-being of the people need the help of foreign workers to make it materialise, according to a contractor association.

Malay Contractors Association (PKMM) president Datuk Mokhtar Samad said as such the recruitment of 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers was timely to ensure that the projects would be completed as soon as possible.

These include DUKE Highway, MRT2, LRT3, Sungai Buloh Township, Gemas-Johor Baru Electrified Double Tracking Railway and PR1MA housing projects.

“The construction industry is very dependent on the participation of foreign workers of about 93%,” he said in a statement here today.

He was commenting on Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s statement that the workers were being brought into the country on the request of industries in the sectors permitted, not because the government wanted it.

In another development, Mokhtar urged the government to reconsider the new levy rate for foreign workers so that all parties would not be burdened and benefit from it.

The government announced that effective on Feb 1, the levy rate for foreign workers in the manufacturing, construction and service sectors would be raised to RM2,500 per person, while those in the farming and agricultural sectors, to be increased to RM1,500 per person.

The restructuring, however, did not involve the levy rate for foreign maids, which was set at RM410 per person. – Bernama

News Source: The Sun Daily