SABAH PLANTATION, AGRI SECTORS URGED TO SUPPORT TARGETED REGULARISATION PROGRAMME

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 18 (Bernama) -- Employers involved in the plantation and agriculture sector in Sabah have been urged to give full cooperation and commitment to the Targeted Regularisation Programme.

The programme allows employers in both sectors to legally register their foreign workers until December.

Immigration Department (JIM) Sabah director Datuk Sh Sitti Saleha Habib Yusof said employers need to get approval from state authorities on the total number of workers required in the two sectors before the department issues temporary work visit passes.

Sh Sitti Saleha said this was because JIM Sabah would only provide the temporary work pass based on the approval letter issued by the state government to the employer, adding that the successful implementation of the programme was also subject to the illegal foreign worker embassy's issuing passports without any hindrance.

"When these workers get their passports from their respective embassies, the employer must coordinate the application for a temporary work visit pass from the Immigration department, and after the pass is issued, they are legally allowed to be in Sabah to work in the agriculture and plantation sector.

"They (employers) cannot sit idly by, but instead need to play a role and be responsible in managing this matter," she said in a press conference here today.

Sh Sitti Saleha said the department would also carry out a large-scale operation following the programme's implementation, stressing that they will impose strict measures against employers who fail to cooperate.

Sh Sitti Saleha added that the regularisation programme began in April 2019, focusing on the government's desire to reduce Indonesian and Filipino illegal immigrants working in Sabah's plantation and agriculture sectors.

However, she said, it was postponed due to the COVID-19 threat, the shortage of passports experienced by embassies and employers' lack of cooperation, among other things.

"A total of 123,575 people were approved by the state government under the programme in 2019, but due to delays, there are still 26,925 who have yet to come forward to apply for the temporary work visit pass," she said.

She said the state government had tasked the department to resume the programme now known as the Targeted Regularisation Programme as decided by the state  Main Committee of Foreigners Management at its meeting on July 25.  

According to her, to kick off the programme state authorities will coordinate the registration of 274 undocumented foreigners from three plantation companies.

-- BERNAMA