KUALA LUMPUR: For years, noted Amanah Strategy Director Dzulkefly Ahmad, cronies of the Home Ministry– and for that matter all ministries– have enriched themselves on Approved Permits (APs). “Little wonder, as it’s such lucrative business for these middlemen, without a value proposition.”

Again, said Dzulkefly, this is a “no brainer” kind of business. “The sooner we stop it, the better.

“Besides, energizing our ministry to be more responsible and perhaps to embark on multi-tasking efforts to serve the business community, we need to weed out unnecessary cronies that are adding to the cost of doing business in Malaysia.”

Crony practices and unfettered pandering to a rentier class– many types and classes– have indeed destroyed this country’s competitiveness, warned Dzulkefly. “We perpetuate it at our own peril!

“Just stop it!

“The announcement on the additional 1.5 million workers from Bangladesh over three years to the already six million foreign workers means that the 6.5 million local workforce, in both the public and private sector, will be outnumbered.”

The attitude, he added, seems to be “never mind the fact that the reliance on foreign workers– except in 3Ds jobs, i.e. dirty, difficult, dangerous– would entrench our ‘Middle-Income Trap’ status; and never mind the malaise of a low-skilled workforce that will perpetually cause our industries to always remain anemic in the low value-added economy and unable to graduate to a higher income economy by paying higher remuneration based on productivity”.

“Never mind the penchant for Putrajaya to merely provide lip-service to end this perennial problem, as they are towards the very end of their ‘overstay’.”

Dzulkefly, when coming to the crux of the matter on foreign labour, has been left wondering why there’s a need for the involvement of certain agencies to recruit foreign workers.

He can understand the source country using agents. “They have to search, recruit, train and provide travel logistics for their workers. That cost was totally justified.

“The contention is why do we need agents over here, on our shores? Why?”

He pointed out that Putrajaya was already making billions through levies for such services. “So, why the need for extra agencies and with it, the cost?”

Those who need foreign workers, he summed up, could surely refer to the Human Resources Ministry.