He said this was exacerbated by the closure of Malaysia’s international borders in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Saravanan had taken over the post from Kula in March 2020, before lockdowns were imposed and after the Pakatan Harapan government fell.

“(Kula) imposed a moratorium on Bangladeshi workers on Sept 1, 2018. From then, until he lost his position as the minister, no foreign workers from Bangladesh were allowed to enter.

“When the government changed and we took over, Covid-19 struck and no workers came in. Because of his error, we had no Bangladeshi workers for almost three years,” he told the Dewan Rakyat today.

Earlier, Kula (PH-Ipoh Barat) had asked Saravanan to explain why the government could not resolve the foreign labour shortage and how many migrant workers had entered Malaysia this year.

Saravanan said the shortage was only resolved after Malaysia’s borders reopened last April, and after reaching agreements with Bangladesh in June.

“So, Bangladeshi workers only started entering Malaysia after June 2. This is all because of an error by (Kula) when he was the minister,” he said.

He gave an assurance the shortage will be sorted once 644,379 foreign workers enter the country after going through biometric and medical procedures at source countries.

“We have cleared about 1,244,400 foreign workers to work in various sectors here. The total number of visas that has been approved by the home ministry is 238,943, and they will come to work here soon.

“Apart from that, 644,379 people are currently undergoing biometric and medical procedures in source countries,” he said.

Saravanan also said there were 2,127,722 foreign labourers in the country now, compared to about 1.1 million last year.

He said this proved that the government did not fail in bringing in migrant workers.

However, he did not state the source countries for these workers.