This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 29, 2026 - July 5, 2026

THE new foreign worker recruitment system called The Universal Recruitment Advanced Platform (Turap) is back on track, roughly a month after the government put it on hold because of pushback over its effectiveness in eliminating the abuse of foreign labour.

Sources say the Cabinet has in principle given its approval for the Ministry of Human Resources to implement the system subject to discussions with industry players in mid-April. Towards this end, the ministry invited industry players to an engagement session last Friday.

“During the engagement session held in Putrajaya, the players were told that the Cabinet had in principle approved the implementation of Turap to complement the existing foreign worker recruitment platforms used by the government,” says a source.

Industry players at the engagement session were briefed on the process and procedures of Turap.

“There were no details as to how the system will eliminate abuse in the recruitment of foreign workers at the source countries. We were only told that the system bypasses ‘predatory structures’ and matches foreign workers directly with the employers,” says an industry player.

At the briefing, the government officials also stated that the current system costs workers up to RM25,000 to come into Malaysia.

Turap is an AI-powered recruitment app developed by Bestinet Sdn Bhd, which was founded by Datuk Seri Aminul Islam Abdul Nor. Bestinet also developed the Foreign Worker Centralised Management System (FWCMS), which has been used by the Malaysian government since 2018 to recruit foreign workers.

Turap first came to light about two months ago, although Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri R Ramanan initially denied that the system was under consideration. He later said the platform would bypass third parties and minimise the exploitation of foreign workers during the recruitment process.

Turap drew criticism on several fronts, including the lack of clarity over how it would eliminate the exploitation of foreign workers, who are often forced to pay exorbitant recruitment fees to village-level agents.

Another source of criticism was the involvement of Bestinet, the company founded by Aminul, whom the Bangladeshi government is seeking to extradite over alleged money laundering and migrant trafficking.

Bestinet’s relationship with the Malaysian government dates back to 2010.

In 2018, Bestinet secured a deal with the government, then under Barisan Nasional’s rule and with Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as the Home Affairs Minister, to deploy the FWCMS to recruit foreign workers, particularly from Bangladesh.

The deal, signed in early 2024, allows the government to use the FWCMS until 2031.

After the fall of Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina government in August 2024, the new administration alleged that the FWCMS had been used to monopolise the recruitment of foreign workers into Malaysia through a network of recruitment firms in Bangladesh.

A White Paper alleged that only 102 companies were allowed to use the system, effectively creating a monopoly. It added that Bangladeshi workers ultimately paid exorbitant fees to agents to secure jobs in Malaysia, despite international labour laws prohibiting such practices.

Following investigations, the Bangladeshi government sought the arrest and extradition of Aminul and his associate Ruhul Amin in October 2024.

In response to Bangladesh’s 2024 request, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution said the police had received the request and were seeking further clarification before any extradition could proceed.

Last year, he said the extradition of Aminul was being discussed at the government-to-government level.

Then, in a surprising turn of events last week, Saifuddin told Parliament that Malaysia had received no official extradition request from the Bangladeshi government regarding Aminul.

The Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur has not responded to queries on the status of Aminul’s extradition.

Interestingly, the latest developments on Turap and Aminul’s extradition come shortly after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Malaysia last week.

Following the visit, both governments agreed to review the memorandum of understanding on foreign worker recruitment and said new quota approvals must be evaluated strictly on a case-by-case basis.

Bangladeshi officials have called for Malaysia to open the labour corridor between the two countries and align the recruitment system with those used for other source countries.

Apart from Bangladesh, Malaysian employers can recruit low-skilled workers from 14 other countries. Bangladeshi workers account for the largest share of foreign labour inflows.

Approvals for recruiting workers from Bangladesh have been frozen since 2024, following concerns that many had entered the country without secured employment.

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