Newly proposed foreign worker system to complement existing systems, not replace them

Wednesday 23 Sep 2026

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KUALA LUMPUR (April 23): Bestinet Sdn Bhd, which has been under scrutiny following a report on a proposed new migrant worker recruitment system, said the new system will not replace existing and incoming systems that oversee Malaysia’s foreign worker recruitment process, but rather, complement them.

The newly-mulled Turap (Universal Recruitment Advanced Platform) "is designed to complement — not replace — FWCMS (Foreign Workers Centralised Management System), MyIMMS (Malaysian Immigration System), NIISe (National Integrated Immigration System) and all other government systems, operating at a distinct upstream layer,” said a statement on Thursday issued by legal firm Lui & Bhullar on behalf of Bestinet.

According to the statement, Turap is the first platform of its kind in the world, developed by drawing on nearly 40 years of cumulative industry experience.

FWCMS, developed and managed by Bestinet, oversees parts of Malaysia’s foreign worker recruitment process, from document processing to management aspects. It was reported its contract was extended until 2031 in June 2024.

NIISe, being developed for phased implementation this year, is aimed at replacing MyIMMS. It covers foreign-worker management, on top of expatriate management, immigration control, as well as passports and travel passes.

Turap, particularly its link to Bestinet, has received flak from certain quarters.

According to former economy minister Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli and a number of fellow PKR backbenchers, past findings show weaknesses in FWCMS that had operated for years without a formal contract. They noted that FWCMS had serious control weaknesses and unsatisfactory management, according to a bipartisan Public Accounts Committee report as well as an Auditor General’s report.

They also questioned the need for Turap, given NIISe’s planned implementation.

Bestinet’s legal firm, in its statement, said the criticism "does not reflect good-faith policy discourse."

It added: “FWCMS eliminated billions in annual leakage previously flowing through informal intermediaries. Turap threatens to eliminate what remains of that network.

“Their opposition is not principled governance advocacy. It is the defence of a financial ecosystem that has profited for decades from the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers. Bestinet will take all necessary legal action against false, misleading or defamatory statements.”

On FWCMS, the statement said “every government decision” followed institutional processes including inter-ministerial consultations, security assessments, international advisory and over a decade of evidence-based performance review.

“Any characterisation of these decisions as irregular, improper or influenced by extraneous factors undermines the institutional integrity of Malaysia’s executive decision-making,” it said.

“Bestinet has contractually committed to transfer full ownership to FWCMS to the government upon contract completion,” it added.

Claiming that Bestinet had invested more than two decades of private capital, without government funding, into the system, the statement said the company “will not be deterred by parties whose interests depend on a return to fraud, trafficking and exploitation”.

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