KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 31): The Cabinet has agreed to undertake a migrant repatriation programme to repatriate undocumented foreign workers who are deemed as not fulfilling local workforce demands under the Workforce Recalibration Programme (WRP), which closed at the end of last year.

This programme will begin on March 1, where compounds are required to be paid for the parties to be exempted from legal action.

“Some of the foreign workers [identified under the Workforce Recalibration Programme] are not fulfilling the local workforce demands,” Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said at a press conference here.

“We will invoke Act 155 (Immigration Act) Section 6 (1)(c) for entering Malaysia without valid documents, [for] which we will impose a compound of RM500.

“We will also invoke Section 15 (1)(c) of the same act for staying in Malaysia after the expiration of any pass issued. For this, we will issue a compound of RM500 as well.

“We will also invoke Regulation 39(b) of Immigration Regulations 1963 for violating the terms [of the visitor pass], with a compound of RM300,” Saifuddin said.

“We will publicise this programme to be taken up by those affected to facilitate the return [of the identified foreign workers to their home countries],” he added.

Malaysia froze new foreign worker quota applications since March last year with few exceptions in certain segments like barber, textile and goldsmith subsectors. This following the approval of around one million foreign worker employment permits across manufacturing, construction, plantation, agriculture and services also in March 2023.

It also initiated a second round of WRP to facilitate legalisation of undocumented foreign workers already residing in the country.