Jakarta, Dec 27 (Antara) - The government needs to clarify and provide comprehensive data on Chinese expatriates in Indonesia to scotch rumors on the influx of millions of illegal Chinese workers into the country.
The public can just believe in those rumors because a broadcast on national television recently showed the arrest of illegal workers, mainly Chinese. The directorate general for work safety and manpower supervision, for example, recently arrested 41 illegal Chinese expatriates.
Hopefully, the police will be successful in tracing an account on the Internet that is suspected to have uploaded a hoax message saying that about 10-20 million illegal Chinese workers have flooded Indonesia.
President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) himself has, at least, two times denied these rumors: first during his address to the 'declaration of national apprenticeship movement¿ in the Karawang International Industrial Estate in West Java on Friday (Dec 23), and later when he inaugurated a geothermal power plant (PLTP) in Minahasa, North Sulawesi on Tuesday (Dec 27).
According to House Deputy Speaker Agus Hermanto, the government should resolve the issue of illegal foreign workers transparently and completely. "The issue regarding the influx of Chinese workers should be addressed clearly," he said in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The government should collect data on laborers entering Indonesia from China. The deputy speaker said that Chinese manual laborers were coming to Indonesia in search of jobs.
Chinese citizens come to work in Indonesia even as several Indonesians are jobless. Manual jobs should be given to Indonesians, according to Agus, who pointed out that foreigners had misused their visas on arrival by working in the country.
The deputy House Speaker also blamed the government's visa-free policy for the alleged influx of Chinese workers. In China, labor-intensive industries, and small and medium enterprises are now using sophisticated equipment. As a result, the number of people unemployed in China has gone up to around 45 million.
President Jokowi termed rumors of the alleged influx of illegal Chinese workers as slanderous.
While inaugurating a geothermal power plant in Tampaso, Minahasa, North Sulawesi on Tuesday, Jokowi said that rumors of Indonesia being flooded by illegal foreign workers, mainly from China, were slanderous and untrue.
"I want to remind you once again, one should not believe in spreading slanderous rumors, which project labor and investment issues as a threat, a threat of being flooded by foreign workforce. I need to say no," said the President.
Rumors have it that nearly 10-20 million workers from China had illegally entered Indonesia.
"The information that I received is that there are, indeed, Chinese workers but their number is only 21,000. They come in and go back because there are a lot of things that we are not yet ready to do. When we are ready we will use our own labor force," he said.
Foreign workers help prepare and initially set up the project, and also transfer knowledge and technology to the domestic workforce. "After that they go home, because they prefer to work in their own country. Do you think that they are happy to work here? They are happy in their own country where they are closer to their families and receive higher salaries there," he said.
While addressing the declaration of national apprenticeship movement, he had said that it was unlikely that workers from Hong Kong, the United States, and Europe would seek employment in Indonesia because salaries there were far higher than in Indonesia.
The president believes that the influx of foreign, particularly Chinese, workers in Indonesia is not logical because wages in Indonesia are only about Rp1.5 million to Rp3 million compared with over Rp5 million in China.
However, political observer Said Salahudin of the People's Synergy for Indonesian Democracy (SIGMA), opined that the president needed to present complete data to deny the rumors.
"It is not enough for the president to only mention the number (of Chinese expatriates)," Salahudin said. He argued that the president must be transparent and provide details on where these 21,000 Chinese workers are.
According to Salahudin, if the government wants to convince the public that the number of Chinese expatriates in Indonesia is not as large as that mentioned in the rumors, he should reveal where the 21,000 people are working, the types of jobs, the recruiter agencies that imported them and so on.
The Sigma executive director said that it is very important for the government to disclose detailed to show its transparency and openness so that the public is convinced. If the public doubted the data, they could cross-check it.
Salahudin suspected that the number being mentioned by the president is of those registered officially in Indonesia. They are legal workers who possess work permits.
"Actually, the problem in question is not the official and legal workers but of those who are working illegally and are predicted to reach thousands or even millions in numbers. I got information from trade union friends that the illegal Chinese workers are being recruited by Chinese investment power plant projects, such as those in Banten, Bali, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and others," he said.(A014/INE/B003)EDITED BY INE
(T.A014/A/BESSR/Bustanuddin) 27-12-2016 23:01:5 |
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