Biometric registration of irregular foreign workers in Malaysia could not be started yesterday due to software glitches.
The registration was scheduled to begin on the day as per Kuala Lumpur's earlier announced amnesty for about two million irregular foreign workers in the country.
Around five lakh Bangladeshi workers are in Malaysia with an estimated three lakh of them irregular.
Once registered, they will be allowed to stay there legally until they are given work permits. And those willing to return home can do so without any penalty.
Malaysian immigration officials were struggling to set the technical problems in the biometric system right.
The foreign workers including those from Bangladesh were seen in long queues at different registration centres at Kota Raya in the capital from yesterday morning till 9:00pm local time, looking somewhat frustrated.
Mantu Kumar Biswas, labour counsellor at Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, told The Daily Star some technical glitches might be there on the first day, but surely things will be alright in a day or two.
There are around two million regular foreign workers in the country. And they are already being registered.
Meanwhile, some employers and workers organisations suggested suspending the amnesty programme, arguing that the biometric system was incomplete and riddled with problems.
"To carry out both exercises at a time is a massive task which the authorities are unable to handle," Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan told the official news agency Bernama yesterday.
Source : The Daily Star
