The problem facing nepali guards in malaysia

KATHMANDU, March 6: A commission formed by Malaysia to execute an ambitious campaign of documenting all illegal foreign workers has refused to provide the basic salary of 950 Malaysian Ringgit (MRG) to new-commer Nepali guards. In a recent letter to the Nepali embassy in Kuala Lumpur, the commission, locally known as the 6p committee, has also threatened to cancel a job quota of 10,000 guards for Nepali workers, who were registered as illegal migrants during the recently-concluded documentation drive, if it were forced to offer the basic salary of 950 MRG, approximately Rs 19,000, to newly recruited Nepali security guards. The 6p committee cited a remuneration policy, which was recently issued in accordance with the Wage Council Act-1947 of Malaysia, to justify its refusal to pay the basic salary of 950 MRG to new Nepali security guards. As per Malaysian remuneration policy, private guards are given only 500-700 MRG as basic salary. In a recent meeting with Nepali embassy officials, Dato Basanta Singh, chairman of the 6p committee, who is also vice-president of the Security Services Association of Malaysia, argued that the new Nepali security guards do not deserve 950 MRG as most of them lack experience of service in the Nepal Army or police. A basic salary scale of 950 MRG, apart from overtime payments, was fixed by the Nepali embassy in September of 2006. All Malaysian privatecompanies complied with the standard set by the embassy till the Malaysia government formally announced a ban on new Nepali guards in 2009. However, the 6p committee has argued that Nepali guards hired before 2009 were given the basic salary of 950 MRG as they had experience of serving in the Nepal Army or police. In its letter to the embassy, the 6p committee has also stated that local Malaysian security guards, after learning that Nepali guards are getting a bigger basic salary than themselves, lodged a complaint with the Ministry of Home Affairs of Malaysia, demanding an end to the gap between basic salaries offered to Nepali and local security guards. Lekh Nath Bhattarai, acting Nepali ambassador to Malaysia, has officially informed the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) that a basic salary of 500-700 MRG, as offered by the 6p committee, would not suffice, given the rising inflation. Bhattarai has sought clear instructions from MoLTM to deal with the new basic salary proposal. Dr Rishi Raj Adhikari, whose stint as Nepal´s ambassador to Malaysia ended only a few weeks earlier, says that the Nepal government must lobby the Malaysia government to maintain the basic salary of 950 MRG."As for the argument that new guards are inexperienced, they can be trained before being hired as security guards," says Adhikari."Accepting lower basic salaries than what was fixed in 2006 would be an injustice." In the recent documentation drive, about 33,000 Nepali workers were found to be working illegally in Malaysia. Earlier, the Malaysia government had announced it would hire 10,000 of them as security guards although they had no relevant job experience.