MUAR, Dec 16 — Employers in the country have been urged to comply with the requirements stated in Act 446 to provide comfortable accommodation to their foreign workers, especially during this Covid-19 pandemic.
Director of the Legal and Enforcement Division of Labour Department of Peninsular Malaysia (JTK) Zaini Yaacob said the government will not compromise with any employer who ignored or failed to comply with the requirements and specifications of the Workers’ Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990 or Act 446.
“For one, the employer will be subject to legal action under Section 24D (1) of Act 446 for not having a certificate of accommodation.
“If convicted, the employer can be can be fined up to RM50,000, and for providing shoddy or congested centralised accommodation offence, the employer can be fined up to RM50,000 or jailed for not more than one year, or both.”
He said this to reporters after leading the operations to inspect foreign workers’ hostel owned by a furniture factory in Jalan Ayer Manis, near here today.
“Over-crowded or packed like sardines” is probably the best term to describe the living conditions of the 321 foreign workers at the hostel. They mostly hailed from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
“The hostel was found to be very poorly managed with mostly clogged or dysfunctional toilets,” Zaini said.
He said the initial investigation found that the hostel, which formerly a factory, did not have a certificate of accommodation from the JTK, let alone an approval from the local authority.
“The hostel is like a barn…with thin plywood bunk beds, much like boxes stacked in tiers, with no mattress, putting the workers in a very uncomfortable situation,” he said.
Also present at the operation held with the cooperation of the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MTIC), Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN), Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) was Johor JTK director, Nasir Kassim.
On December 3, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan told the Dewan Rakyat that more than 90 per cent of foreign workers’ accommodation provided by their employers in the country, did not comply with Act 446 involving a total of 1.4 million workers.
He said, as of October 30, the government only received applications for the Certificate of Accommodation involving 143,587 or 8.89 per cent of the 1.6 million foreign workers in the country.
— Bernama
