ISLAMABAD, 9 January 2005 — Malaysian Interior Ministry officials recently refused to meet a Pakistani government delegation that went there to hold negotiations on import of manpower from Pakistan.
The Senate Standing Committee on Labor, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis was told that the Malaysian government was pursuing its trade interests and giving importance to workers from India instead of Pakistan.
The committee meeting was presided over by Naeem Chattha and attended by senators including Enwar Baig. The disclosure was made by top officials of Bureau of Immigration and Overseas Employment and Overseas Employment Corporation.
They said despite their best efforts, the Labor Ministry officials were not entertained by the Malaysian Interior Ministry. The committee members asked Labor Ministry officials to inform them about the much publicized MOU signed between Pakistan and Malaysia for hiring of Pakistani labor.
The ministry officials said that the MOU was signed specifically to make Pakistan eligible to send its manpower to Malaysia as its name was not on the approved list of countries from where Malaysia imports manpower.
There was no mention of number of manpower to be imported as earlier claimed by ministers. The meeting was told that after the signing of the MOU not one person was sent to Malaysia as Kuala Lumpur was not keen to import manpower from Pakistan.
It said keeping the discouraging response of the Malaysian ministry, the government sent its own delegation to convince them to import labor from Pakistan. But no progress was made on this count.
The Labor Ministry officials felt that the Malaysian Labor Ministry was not inclined to import manpower from Pakistan. When a senator asked whether the Malaysian government was not importing manpower from Pakistan because of alleged Pakistani links to terrorists, the officials denied it. However, they told the meeting “we should not deal with Malaysia only because it is a Muslim country.”
