Tenaganita: Levy leads to further exploitation

The Star

PETALING JAYA: Forcing migrant workers to pay levy charges will lead to further exploitation, according to Tenaganita.

Its executive director Dr Irene Fernandez said shifting the responsibility of paying for the levy from employers to migrant workers would eat into the latter’s “already meagre incomes”.

“The levy deducted for the average foreign worker, besides those in the plantation sector, accounts for about 17% of the wage earned.

“On the other hand, a Malaysian needs to pay taxes only when he or she earns more than RM3,000 monthly.

“Thus, migrant workers are in fact the highest taxpayers in terms of income and levy. And the migrant worker does not enjoy any benefit from these taxes,’’ she told reporters at the Tenaganita headquarters here yesterday.

The levy system was introduced in 1992. However, the Government moved this responsibility to employers in 2009 in an effort to reduce the country’s reliance on migrant manpower.

On Wednesday, Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah announced that the Cabinet had decided that foreign workers were to pay their levy charges, adding that this was to lower employers’ cost in hiring such workers.

Fernandez said removing the levy burden from employers would only prod them to replace local workers with foreigners.