PETALING JAYA: Employers have claimed that the Immigration Department is no longer allowing their representatives to do the work permit renewals of foreign workers and insisting that company directors come personally to do it instead.

Company employees who hold a “yellow card”, which allows them to act as company representatives, were shocked when told that they could no longer do the work permit renewals at the counters.

Group human resources manager Mazlan Harun, 54, said the move was ridiculous as the directors of companies, especially multi-national corporations, would not have the time to queue up and wait for hours for their turn at the counter.

“When I went last week, they refused to give me the number to queue up, saying the company director needed to be present.

“My boss had to rush over and show his identification, and then they asked him to wait for his turn.

“It was completely unnecessary as in the end, the officers only asked to check his MyKad and nothing else,” he said.

Mazlan added that the staff asked for the company’s Form 49, which contains information on a company’s director, manager and secretary.

He said officers refused to allow any other company representative besides those whose names were on the form to take a number to queue up.

A human resources manager of a furniture manufacturing company known only as Yip, 42, said he was told that the company director had to be present at the counter in order to get the permits renewed.

“This happened when I went to the Immigration office in Putrajaya last Monday.

“I told them my boss was overseas and they said they could not do the renewals.

“I have been holding the yellow card for the past seven years and never had such a problem,” he said.

Yip said he ended up using the MyEG system to renew the permits for the 52 workers and had to pay the additional RM38 fee per worker.

The yellow card is issued by the Immigration Department to allow company representatives to do permit renewals for the company’s foreign workers on behalf of their employers.

The Immigration Department had announced that its counters would be closed and that permit renewals must only be done online via MyEG effective Jan 5.

However, it decided to re-open its counters until Feb 28, following protests from various groups against the RM38 fee imposed for the renewal for each foreign worker.

The online applications via MyEG are still open as well.

Another human resources executive known as Muhammad, 57, had the same experience when he went to the Immigration office in Shah Alam last week.

“Of course, our company director does not have time to go to the office personally and queue up to renew the permits.

“When I asked why they had suddenly imposed such a rule, they simply said they were following ‘orders from the top’.

“I have been handling renewals for the company and its eight subsidiaries for over 25 years,” he said, adding that the company had about 1,000 workers.

To pay RM38 per worker to MyEG would be very costly, he said.

Muhammad said other yellow card holders in Penang, Malacca and Negri Sembilan had also faced the same problem.

Resource: The Star