KUALA LUMPUR (April 23): Steven Sim Chee Keong, the former human resources minister, is keeping mum over Malaysia’s proposed new foreign worker recruitment system.

Sim also cut short questions from The Edge at an event held at Bank Rakyat, redirecting reporters to his press secretary before turning away and declining further questions. 

“You can send the questions to my press secretary,” Sim said briefly.

He said he would only respond to matters under his current portfolio at the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives, while limiting his responses to topics linked to the day’s event, which centred on cooperative development in Malaysia.

The silence comes as debate intensifies over the government’s reported plan to roll out the Universal Recruitment Advanced Platform, a new system also known as Turap and said to be developed by Bestinet Sdn Bhd, according to a Bloomberg report.

Bestinet currently operates the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS).

Sim was replaced by Datuk Seri R Ramanan, who has since stepped forward to defend the potential introduction of a new platform. While Ramanan maintained that no final decision has been made, he acknowledged the ministry is looking at a potential new digital platform for foreign worker recruitment.

Critics including former economy minister Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli and several Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) lawmakers have openly questioned the rationale of introducing yet another system by the same entity. They argue it risks entrenching private-sector control over a critical national function while duplicating existing and planned government systems.

The concerns are compounded by the government’s ongoing development of the National Integrated Immigration System (NIISe), expected to be operational by 2028, raising questions over potential overlap and policy coherence.

Rafizi had warned that past findings by oversight bodies already highlighted governance weaknesses in existing systems such as FWCMS. He said he had opposed the extension of the FWCMS contract during his time in Cabinet.