This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 30, 2024 - January 12, 2025

THE story of Bestinet Sdn Bhd and its 13-year dealings with the Malaysian government to handle foreign workers coming into the country underscores the lucrative world of providing manpower.

The business is so profitable that often individuals who are supposedly close to the government of the day go on a “fishing expedition” to try to get a slice of the pie, hence eventually increasing the cost for employers and workers.

Bestinet, which is at the centre of a business that is estimated to be worth RM40 billion a year, has survived five prime ministers, four home ministers and a legal suit that almost cost the owner of the company dearly.

The biggest source of foreign workers is Bangladesh, where the owner of Bestinet is from. Datuk Seri Aminul Islam Abdul Nor, who has been granted Malaysian permanent resident status, founded Bestinet, which developed the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS).

The FWCMS has 15 modules and is supposed to cover all aspects of processing the documents of foreign workers from all countries. However, the Immigration Department has used it mainly to process the entry of Bangladeshi workers.

Issues pertaining to the government and Bestinet can be traced back to 2014 when current Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was the home minister.

After a series of discussions with the government and alleged intervention from influential individuals supposedly acting as “consultants” in return for fees of up to RM200 million, Bestinet finally received the letter of award in early 2018.

At the time, the contract was only for six years, from 2018 to 2024. For providing the services of FWCMS to the Immigration Department, Bestinet was to get RM100 per foreign worker.

The Public Private Partnership Unit (Ukas) of the Prime Minister’s Department had recommended that the charge be RM86 but Bestinet wanted RM120.

Also in 2017, new shareholders, who were supposedly close to Ahmad Zahid then, were poised to come into Bestinet just before it was to secure the contract from the government.

Based on court documents, Aminul rescinded all shareholders’ agreements that were signed in October 2017 and managed to hang on to Bestinet. The suit was dismissed in 2021.

However, after 2018, the agreement was never signed off and Bestinet was not allowed to collect fees, although the Immigration Department was using some of its FWCMS modules. The matter prolonged until this year when a new agreement was signed on Sept 3. More details were available to the public during the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) grilling of government officials, particularly from the Home Ministry.

Under the new agreement, Bestinet gets RM215 for processing and issuing the temporary foreign worker permit (PLKS) for six years for workers from all countries. In return, Bestinet will drop all claims against the government.

An estimated 2.5 million foreign workers enter Malaysia a year. On that count, Bestinet gets RM537 million per year or RM3.2 billion over six years.

The money is part of the levy that employees pay the government. So, effectively, it is either the employers or foreign workers who end up paying the additional cost because there was no proper oversight on the part of the government in its dealings with Bestinet in the last 10 years.

According to documents from the PAC proceedings, officials from the Home Ministry stated that the fees of RM215 was set by a committee comprising high-level government officials, including representatives from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).

The AGC felt that Bestinet had a strong claim and subsequently the committee recommended a new agreement with higher charges for it to claw back all the fees that were not collected between 2018 and 2024. Many questions surround Bestinet’s dealings with the government. For one, Bestinet received the letter of award in January 2018 but it was not a firm document. Why didn’t the Pakatan Harapan 1.0 government, and subsequent two other governments that came to power between May 2018 and November 2022 review the agreement with Bestinet?

Prior to May 2018, Bestinet was the subject of interest of certain persons supposedly wielding much power within the Barisan Nasional government then. In 2021, the court ruled in favour of Aminul deciding that he was coerced to sign off control of Bestinet and two other companies.

The latest agreement was signed off in September this year. Were there any hidden hands involved in the deal?

Finally, the founder of Bestinet and another person are wanted by the authorities in Bangladesh. It has been reported that the new government in Bangladesh also does not want Malaysia to use the FWCMS to process the documents of workers from that country. Aminul has denied any wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, will there be any implications for the entry of foreign workers from Bangladesh if the matter is not resolved soon? 

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play.