PETALING JAYA: The Immigration Department has come under the spotlight of the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) for raiding certain food outlets employing illegal workers but leaving out others committing the same offence. EAIC, which is charged with looking into complaints against enforcement officers of government agencies, is now waiting for an explanation from the department’s director-general, Sakib Kusmi, on the reasons for such selective raids. EAIC Chairman Yaacob Md Sam told FMT: “We found out immigration officers have raided some restaurants but do not do the same at other premises even though they are just next door. “Why are they raiding some and leaving out the others?” EAIC had also found a lot of pasar malam outlets being operated by illegal immigrants. “They do not have permits and yet they continue to operate and run businesses. “The problem must be widespread because these are the complaints we have received from the public. They have noticed the selective enforcement.” Yaacob said after receiving public complaints on the selective raids, he requested for a special meeting with the Immigration DG, for an explanation on the matter. Yaacob said he would also be bringing up other issues during a special meeting with Sakib. He said EAIC would like to know the reasons for the immigration officers working with e-services portal MyEg. MyEg is an e-service provider that provides a wide range of government-to-citizen (G2C) services, like renewing road tax and paying police summonses. It also acts for the Insolvency Department, Kuala Lumpur City Hall and other utility companies. “Who assigned them there? Who is paying their salary? What are they doing there? Who do they report to?” Yaacob said they found out an agent was hired by the Immigration Department to process documents of foreign workers and wanted to know what authority he had and what his arrangement was with the department. Malaysia has an estimated two million illegal workers in Malaysia.

Source: Free Malaysia Today