Nation

3-month grace period could lead to new clusters in quarters

KUALA LUMPUR: A three-month grace period during the Covid-19 pandemic is too long an allowance for employers to get their act together and provide safer housing for migrant workers.

North-South Initiative director Adrian Pereira said the amendments were already in place and employers should have no issues allocating space and facilities for housing to meet the requirement under a month.

He said as most recruiters were in the construction and manufacturing sectors, they should also have no issues in finding the space or coming up with the investment for the purpose.

"To say they were caught off-guard and need more time is unacceptable, because the ministry is always engaging stakeholders, such as contractors and developers and others, before drafting laws and tabling them.

"If we wait three months, there will be new clusters in quarters and workplaces, and the virus could spread to others whom the migrants come into contact with, including locals," Pereira said.

Compounding the problem was the claim that Malaysia had between two million and four million undocumented workers.

"The Health Ministry said that 80 per cent of the carriers are asymptomatic and that it conducts targeted testing only when there are several (positive) cases to identify clusters or large gatherings, and allow contact tracing to take place."

Malaysian Trades Union Congress president Datuk Abdul Halim Mansor said the amended law specified a maximum number of people in a dormitory and house, which was not much of an improvement.

"My impression is that it is just a transference of the earlier act, with minor updates. It doesn't account for a pandemic or address the overcrowding in kongsi or quarters that employers provide for workers."

He said the new rule would allow for a maximum of four people per room under a specified floor area with double-decker beds.

He said only 12 workers could live in a three-room house in a housing area.

"My main issue is enforcement. With the Home Ministry being in charge of approving the intake of foreign workers and the Human Resources Ministry looking after their welfare, how can it (the latter) inspect the housing and enforce these measures?"

Malaysian Bumiputera Contractors Association president Datuk Azman Yusoff urged contractors cleared for construction work to quickly space out their workers' living quarters to prevent infection and lead to the closure of construction sites.

He urged them to place their workers at the Construction Industry Development Board's Centralised Labour Quarters (CLQ) to ensure that workers did not live in crowded spaces.

Azman said that the CLQ facilities had canteens, shops and hostels, making it easier for the authorities to control the
movement of workers for screening.

He said contractors could lease out training centres that provided hostels during the Conditional Movement Control Order until the pandemic was brought under control.

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