THE government has been using the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS), an integrated system for the registration of migrant labour, for more than six years without a finalised contract, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) revealed.

The FWCMS system vendor was Bestinet Sdn Bhd, a company once linked to Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who had denied involvement.

PAC chairman Mas Ermieyati Samsudin said a letter of acceptance for the development of FWCMS was issued on January 12, 2018, but government did not sign a contract with the vendor.

“This means that Putrajaya (Home Ministry) has been using the FWCMS system for almost six years without a finalised contract and this clearly violates the rules of the government,” she said in a statement today.

The PAC found that the FWCMS was not even included in the list of projects that had the cabinet’s principle approval for public-private partnership from 2009 to 2020.

“In addition, it was found from the cabinet note about the direction and implementation of FWCMS was not raised to the cabinet before the letter of approval was issued,” Mas Ermieyati said.

In August 2015, the Barisan Nasional government approved the development of the FWCMS and Integrated Foreign Workers Management (ePPAx) system under the Home and Human Resources Ministries. Zahid was the home minister at the time.

“This has resulted in overlapping functions between agencies and a waste of public funds.”

Mas Ermieyati said the PAC report on the ePPAx and FWCMS was based on four hearings.

During hearings, representatives of the two ministries had said that migrant workers could be registered manually.

Mas Ermieyati said the PAC found that the FWCMS had 24 unauthorised users who had approved 24 employer applications.

She said this has been reported to the police.

Mas Ermieyati said the Home and Human Resources Ministries must work together to manage foreign workers.

Last week, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the cabinet had agreed in principle to extend Bestinet’s contract to provide the government with IT systems for the recruitment of foreign workers.

Mas Ermieyati today revealed that the extension was for three years.

She said PAC will continue probe into the contract extension. – July 3, 2024.