Nur Jazlan Receives Whatsapp Scam Message About Himself
It was a case of guerilla marketting gone wrong. A company, which sent spam WhatsApp messages claiming to have been endorsed by the Immigration Department to help illegal foreign workers obtain valid work permits, shot themselves in the foot after their offer reached the phone of the Deputy Home Minister himself.
The Ministry now intends to investigate and shut down the so-called rehiring company, said Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed (pic).
“I don’t remember endorsing them,” he said outside the Parliament lobby, Tuesday.
In the message the company, Juang Global, claimed that it had been given “advantages” by the Ministry that was better than other companies chosen for its amnesty rehiring programme that would allow employers to legalise unregistered foreign workers.
The company claims that it would slash the hefty compounds imposed by the programme if employers registered with it and also claimed customers would not need to worry about “Immigration bottlenecks”.
The message said that its programme was opened to all foreign nationalities except those from Africa.
“We will be making a police report against this company and will investigate how many foreigners have been duped by this scheme.
“I want to alert employers and foreign workers that othe only companies mandated for this rehiring programme are Bukti Megah Sdn Bhd, International Marketing and Net Resources Sdn Bhd (Iman) and MyEG,” Nur Jazlan said.
The Ministry’s rehiring programme began earlier this year and now even allows workers to register online.
The programme is aimed at giving them a chance to obtain valid work permits to meet labour demands in specific sectors and would enable the Government to know the number of illegal foreign workers in the country for monitoring and security purposes.
Nur Jazlan said from February 15 to March 10, 15, 822 foreign workers had applied to be legalised under the programme. Majority of them are from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Despite that, the Ministry views the response to this programme to be lacklustre.
Nur Jazlan had faulted weak enforcement from the Immigration Department as the reason why employers were not responding to the programme.
In response, the Ministry decided to shorten the deadline to June 30 with the promise that the book would be thrown to employers that are found to still be hiring illegal foreigners after the deadline.
Those found flouting this may be fined up to RM50,000, two-years jail or both, if convicted under Section 55(B) of the Immigration Act.
On top of that, employers who are caught with more than five illegal foreign workers face between six months to five years jail, and up to six strokes of the rotan.
News Sources: The Star