The phenomenon of “jobless Nepali workers with job contracts” has baffled the Nepal Embassy in Kuala Lumpur as it started receiving complaints of unemployment from its citizens, said its second secretary Prem Bahadur Budthapa.

He said the embassy is equally baffled to learn the contracts used to get migrant worker import quotas were fake, reported in a Malaysiakini’s exposé this week, and that the number of workers supplied overstripped demand.

This is because all the applications for workers were vetted and cleared by three Malaysian ministries before they arrived at the embassy for attestation, he said.

“The documents that have been cross-checked by relevant government organisations indicate they bear the approval of the...