The cabinet will discuss the issue of the recruitment of workers from Nepal at its weekly meeting on Friday, Human Resource Minister M Kulasegaran said today.

One of the key matters to be discussed would the role of a local company that had been linked to the recruitment of workers from that country, he told the Dewan Rakyat.

Replying to a supplementary question from Ismail Mohamed Said (BN-Kuala Krau), during the Ministers’ Question Time, he said what had become an issue was the outsourcing conducted by the company.

Kulasegaran said the matter would be scrutinised and action would have to be taken in the event of any irregularities.

Ismail had wanted to know whether the recent withdrawal of approval to extend the Temporary Employment Visit Pass (PLKS) for the 11th year by the new government had prompted the Nepalese government to stop sending its citizens to work in Malaysia.

The Nepali Times news portal, in a report entitled 'Kleptocrats of Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur', alleged that a nexus of politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats in Nepal and Malaysia had made huge profits from vulnerable Nepali migrant workers desperate to seek work in Malaysia.

As a result, the Nepalese government reportedly put an immediate stop to its citizens coming to Malaysia for jobs as it was unhappy with the tight immigration rules imposed on the potential migrant workers.

It was said that this included a monopoly of a private company in conducting security and health checks as part of the visa requirements.

Kulasegaran said that up to June 20 this year, the number of foreign workers issued the PLKS by the Immigration Department was 1,747,154, with 378,577 of them being from Nepal, the second highest number after those from Indonesia.

- Bernama