Dear Dato' Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein (nothing really, just a question of rumour about Immigration Department's Irregularity)

[UPDATED: 02 May]
Bernama reported (1 May):

The Cabinet has decided to defer temporarily the implementation of the foreign worker levy hike, Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr. S.Subramaniam said.

"The Cabinet felt that it was not the right time to implement the levy hike on foreign workers due to the uncertain economic situation,"

"With this decision, the implementation of the doubling of levy payment for foreign workers will be deferred temporarily until the economy improves," he said.

My comment: Then my request considered scrapped for now. ;)

[UPDATED: 25 April]
The news is confirmed already. Daily Express reported (25 April) in a very small paragraph:

"Meanwhile, in a statement the levy for foreign workers in the services, agriculture and factories sector will be increased effective May 1, this year."

However, the "rumour" of the different levy increase between the two agriculture sectors are still the same. If someone can correct me I'll be happy to add it here. ;)

[ORIGINAL POST]
First of all, allow me to congratulate Dato’ Seri on your appointment as Minister of Home Affairs Ministry. It is hoped that you will do as excellent as or better than the previous administration.

Now, to the task. I heard a “rumour” that spreads like wildfire. Nothing scandalous or mind-boggling really. (No, not like the bribery investigation of the department director/s.) Just that the last time when the then DPM (now PM) presented the Mini Budget (Financial Stimulus), he said ONLY the foreign worker’s levy for service sector would be raised (and 100% at that) which causes much furore from the service sectors especially from the restaurant owners.

The “rumour” I heard indicated that NOT ONLY the foreign worker levy from service sector would be increased 100% but also from and [KY: Edited 24 April] the manufacture sector and but also from [KY:Added 24 April] SMALL SCALE (less than 100 acres) AGRICULTURE sector. Starting 1st May 2009, all foreign worker employers from those sectors mentioned were needed to pay additional 100% the cost of levy aside from the usual fees. Exceptions were given to the construction and LARGE SCALE (100 acres or larger) AGRICULTURE sectors.

I am not against the notion that the employers should employ local instead of foreign workers. However, I would like to quote from an employer, Mr YS:

“Kalau pekerja tempatan boleh diharap kami tak bising punya. Ini! Baru kerja dua bulan sudah berhenti!” (If local workers can be depended then we have no qualm one. This! Just after a couple of months work they quit already!)

No, if I know Mr YS well, he isn’t the one who treat his worker badly. In fact, he rewards his workers by their work performance, accordingly and generously, even more so if the workers are local. According to another employer, Mr G, not all but most of the available meagre numbers of (former) local workers actually:

1. Demand more wages.
2. Demand more day off.
3. Do less work (less productive).
4. Have habit to disappear once supervisor is away.
5. Have habit to steal from employers.

Well, I could add more, but I’m sure you see what I mean. I know there are some fair employers (and unfair ones at that) and hardworking local workers out there. However, the case of bad impression of the local workers is not something that can be overlooked or brushed away. Okay, I’m straying from the main question.

The point is, if the department wanted to (according to that “rumour”) double the levy for hiring foreign workers, they should be FAIR to all. Supposedly you ask, “How unfair?” I suppose I can provide you with a table for comparison (based on Tawau Immigration Department Fee):

Sector	Usual Fee (RM)			Additional Fee (RM)	Total (RM)	Percentage Increase
	Levy	Pass	Process
Agriculture (Small-scale)	360.00	60.00	10.00	360.00	790.00	45.57%
Agriculture (Large-scale)	540.00	60.00	10.00	-	610.00	-
Construction	960.00	60.00	50.00	-	1,070.00	-
Manufacture	960.00	60.00	50.00	960.00	2,030.00	47.29%
Service	1,440.00	60.00	50.00	1,400.00	2,950.00	47.46%

If you can see from the table, all 3 double levy sectors have increase of at least 45% cost. However, please check between the two different scale agricultural sectors. The small-scale agriculture employers need to pay MORE than their large-scale agriculture “counterpart”. Talk about helping small time/scale agriculture! Sorry if I appear to be “shouting”. ;)

So, Dato' Seri, since Immigration Department is under your Ministry, can you confirm or deny this irregularity (with explanation how this “rumour” arise if it’s okay with you), and possibly (if confirmed that is), can you influent to have them fixed/amended (fairly), or postponed (which is preferable)?

Thank you for taking your time to look into this insignificant inquiry.

KY (An insignificant voter) ;)

Dear Health Minister

Original title "Health Minister, you owe Sabah answers" reproduced from MalaysiaKini.com. New Sabah Times added: "EDITOR’S NOTE : This letter was first published in the online portal Malaysiakini by a Concerned Citizen and reproduced in the New Sabah Times as this is an issue that concerns every Malaysian in Sabah. It is hoped that MCA leaders in Sabah,in particular Datuk Edward Khoo,take note of this plight and urged his fellow MCA leader,who is the Health Minister,to take immediate measures to rectify this anomaly. We simply cannot wait for a major disaster." On further check, the original letter is from Product of The System's blogspot titled "Open Letter to the Minister of Health." dated Feb 21, 2009.

Health Minister, you owe Sabah answers

Dear Health Minister,

Ali, a 32-year-old road traffic accident victim, travelled three hours from a district in Sabah and arrived in Kota Kinabalu six hours after the initial trauma. After the initial assessment in the emergency department, a CT scan of the head and abdomen was ordered to exclude intracranial bleeding and intraabdominal injury.

He was whisked back onto an ambulance to the privately-owned Sabah Medical Center (SMC) for the required scans. After the ten-minute procedure, he was repacked into the ambulance back to Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) to undergo further assessment while awaiting the results of his blood tests and X-rays. His scans and X-rays were reviewed.

Ali was found to have a lacerated liver and a fractured long bone with multiple superficial wounds. He was then prepared for emergency surgery.

For that, the young man was then re-wheeled into the ambulance and headed once again to the SMC where the operating theatre and intensive care unit of QEH are currently housed. By the time surgery starts, it was already nine hours from the time of his motor vehicle accident.

My story hasn’t finished, Mr Minister.

One hour into the operation, our young chap bled tremendously that he required more blood products to sustain life. It would not be another hour or so before the blood products arrive from the blood bank of QEH to the SMC.

You see YB, blood has to be taken from the patient and passed to a house officer. The house officer will fill in the necessary forms and hand them over to an attendant. The attendant will wait for a chartered bus or ambulance to head back to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital or rather, what remains of it.

Back in QEH, the attendant will wait 45 minutes for the blood to be cross-matched and then wait a while more for the arrival of a chartered bus or ambulance to ferry him (or her) back to SMC.

Anyway, being a fit and healthy young man previously, Ali survived the operation. He was admitted to the ICU and needed a repeated chest X-ray.

For that, the radiography team in QEH is informed. The duo will then take a the chartered bus or ambulance to SMC to perform the X-ray. Shooting an X-ray takes all but two minutes. Processing the cassette will take another five.

However, the processing is done back in the hospital and delivered by the next available ambulance back to SMC. By the time the X-ray films reach the patient, it could be anything from three to twelve hours later.

Dear Yang Berkhidmat (YB) Liow,

I hope you notice the unacceptable predicament our Sabahan patients (and medical staff) are facing currently. It is already six months since the initial and abrupt closure of Kota Kinabalu’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Since then, we have been without a proper operating theatre and intensive care unit.

We are also without distinctive wards for many of our surgical patients of most disciplines. Frankly speaking, the health crisis of the state of Sabah has run so deep and so far along that I do not where to begin.

I will instead serve an eye-opening fact to you, Mr. Liow. At the height of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) epidemic, the the communist government of the People’s Republic of China erected a 1,000-bed hospital within seven days.

Work on the Xiaotangshan Hospital started on April 24, 2003 and was completed on April 30, with 7,000 workers and 500 machines tirelessly on duty around the clock. Far from being a melamine-laced structure, the Xiaotangshan Hospital is equipped with the then state-of-the-art anti-infective measures and facilities.

The structure built within a week is still standing firm six years later today, ready to house any ill and potentially infective patient in the event of any unforeseen health crisis.

Mr Health Minister,

That is exactly what Sabahans are in right now – a health crisis. The Barisan Nasional government chants ‘Malaysia Boleh’ like some proverbial battle-cry but the Sabah state health crisis has proven that empty vessels make the most noise.

Unlike MCA members, not everyone enjoys being labeled a ‘squatter’. For six months, the medical staff and patients of Sabah have been housed in sections of the Sabah Medical Center paying a whooping rental of RM 90,000 per day.

For five months since our forced relocation into your prized SMC, we only had one operating room for life-threatening emergency cases. Elective surgeries were postponed indefinitely even those involving cancers and prostates and suspicious breast lumps.

We only restarted elective surgeries a month ago but even so, the backlog of cases is tremendous and catastrophic. I wonder Mr Minister, how would you like to have a tumor growing in your rectum with no avenue of getting it removed?

That is exactly what our poor Sabah folk are facing. They were without money and without a hospital to get operated in. In fact, they still don’t because they do not have a formal general hospital for Kota Kinabalu anymore.

Heck, we don’t even have our own CT scan. What we do have, however, is lots of bills to pay and debts to settle.

Is it true that the state department of health owes SMC a total of RM 6.1 million for CT scan services? Is it true that Hantaran Wira, the company contracted to provide transport to and fro SMC-QEH is paid RM500,000 per month?

Mr. Minister,

You owe the 3.4 million population of Sabah a lot of answers for wasted lives and needless deaths. Money cannot solve all problems in life. Thank you for listening.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

KY: While I might agree to most of the content above, I think political, emotional outburst and non-objectivity should be left out. For example: "Unlike MCA members, not everyone enjoys being labeled a ‘squatter’." The author of the letter is almost clearly anti-MCA/BN or at least a disappointed MCA member. If I am to take him/her out of context, I will certainly say s/he claims MCA members enjoy being labeled squatters (penghuni setinggan?) which is a blatant lie/false presumption!