Tenaganita: Thousands cheated under 6P plan

Women and immigrant rights NGO Tenaganita today claimed that an estimated 5,000 workers have been cheated by a group of companies which registered Bangladeshi workers under the 6P programme without Home Ministry approval.

Tenaganita executive director Irene Fernandez (left) said the group carried out the bogus operation by borrowing biometric machines from two other firms legally tasked for the biometric registration.

“Thirty-two of the workers concerned have approached us to date because they do not have their passports or work permits,” she said.

The Bangladeshi workers had to fork out between RM2,500 to RM4,000 for what they believed to be a legitimate registration service.

“Imagine 5,000 workers paying an average of RM2,000, that is RM10 million,” she said.

To add insult to injury, Fernandez said in applying for the work permit on behalf of the workers, the group had changed the workers's employer to four companies they had set up themselves.

“They did not register them under their original employer, they registered them under their new companies. So now the group also has control of the workers,” she said.

Furthermore, a runner of the group of companies by the name of Mustapha Husain was arrested at the Immigration Department in Jalan Duta last Sunday for trying to pass off a forged signature when applying for work permits with some 150 passports.

However, police and immigration investigation of the matter has been slow.

Fernandez called on the Home Ministry for speedy probe into the issue and freeze its crackdown on illegal immigrants who have become victims of the 6P amnesty programme.

“The workers are also receiving threats from the companies, they are threatening that the police would arrest them, and continue holding their passports,” she said.

She added that there could possibly be other companies with similar syndicates involving Nepali and Indonesian workers.

“This could explain why only 300,000 workers have received their work permits despite 1.3 million people  being registered under the 6P biometric system,” she said.