M

alaysia’s amnesty program aimed at managing the waves of foreigners seeking menial jobs unwanted by Malaysians, lacks clarity, migrant workers claim.

Even after Malaysia began registering up to 2 million illegal immigrant workers earlier this week under the so-called 6P program , an Indonesian migrant worker raised the question of how much it would cost him.

“What is the actual fee for the [amnesty program] as I receive numerous offers [of different fees]?” Ardiansah Andre posted on the Amnesty 6P Malaysia page on Facebook.

The Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur says the program lacked clarity from the start, with officials not providing sufficient information to all foreign missions in Malaysia, or to illegal migrant workers.

“Nevertheless, the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur has anticipated all the possibilities by giving accurate information [about the amnesty program] to Indonesian communities in Malaysia, including migrant workers,” the embassy said Tuesday in a letter sent to The Jakarta Post.

The embassy said it disseminated the information through direct talks with Indonesian communities, press conferences, the embassy’s website and monthly magazine Caraka, flyers and banners and handbooks on the program.

The embassy’s head of information, social and cultural affairs, Suryana Sastradiredja, said Indonesians living in more remote areas of Malaysia may not have the proper information about the program.

Migrant Care Malaysia executive director Alex Ong earlier said many Indonesian migrant workers received limited information about the program due to the limited capacity (not poor performance as earlier reported) of the Indonesian Embassy in disseminating information to the millions of Indonesian workers there.

There were an estimated 1 million Indonesian migrants working legally in Malaysia as of Dec. 30, 2010, according to Malaysian immigration officials, while there are an estimated 1.2 million Indonesians working illegally in Malaysia who are being targeted through the amnesty program.

Suryana claimed the Malaysian government had no clear policy on the amnesty program due to various changes, leading to the presence of brokers and bogus agencies, or even appointed agencies who charged migrant workers more than the fees set by the Malaysian government.