PETALING JAYA: Employment agencies are pleading to the government not to drag till year end to allow fresh intake of foreign maids amid reports that Malaysia and Indonesia will resume discussions over the matter.

       Association of Employment Agencies president Datuk Foo Yong Hoi said there was a serious urgency to fulfil the high demand for domestic helpers, especially during the lockdown.

       “Both sides need to urgently resume talks as the protocols of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) have expired since 2016.

       “All parties also need to respect the MOU once consensus is reached and cannot make any change unilaterally, including clauses on salary payment,” he said in an interview yesterday.

       It was reported on Thursday that Malaysia and Indonesia would resume fresh talks towards signing the MOU on the recruitment and placement of foreign workers.

       However, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said the intake of new foreign workers, including domestic helpers, was expected not to happen until the year end.

       Welcoming the announcement, National Association of Human Resources Malaysia (Pusma) president Zarina Ismail hopes that the MOU can be finalised soon to allow for the processing and entry of Indonesian maids.

       “We appreciate the acknowledgement from the minister. Ever since the prolonged halt in the intake of foreign domestic helpers in March last year, tens of thousands of Malaysian households were left without an extra pair of helping hands,” she said.

       Aside from Indonesia, the Philippines, said Zarina, was also a major source of domestic helpers, urging the government to talk to other source countries as well.

       “Considering that the Philippines has already allowed the deployment of their domestic workers overseas since early of this year, and there isn’t any MOU issue to finalise, we hope that our government will carry out the same procedural initiative without further delay.

       “In fact, neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Brunei, Taiwan and Hong Kong have already resumed the intake of foreign domestic helpers since the start of this year,” she added.

       Pusma, she said, was perplexed by the government’s decision to disallow the intake of new maids since the country had already allowed the entry of foreigners, including students and expatriates, subjected to the strict standard operating procedure.

       “Malaysian employers are facing extreme shortage of maids and this has caused unwanted problems such as illegal agents exploiting those desperate employers,” she said.

       She said while Pusma understood the government’s concern to curb the spread of Covid-19, it believed that maids posed a lower risk comparatively as each would be employed individually with her movement confined to an employer’s household.

       Julian Tan, a consultant at a jobs agency, agreed, urging the government to allow the entry of foreign maids immediately.

       “If the government only allows the process of the application at end of the year, that would mean that desperate employers can only expect their helpers to be in their household in March or April next year,” he said.