PUTRAJAYA: Seeking greener pasture, some legal foreign workers are said to have fled their employers while on the way to register themselves under the Immigration Department's biometric system.

A source told the New Straits Times that since the registration exercise began on July 13, two such cases had been reported involving a number of foreigners in Johor.

The source said legal foreign workers who wanted to jump jobs would discard their documents, such as passports, and declare themselves illegal.

The foreigners would then try to register for work permits with the Immigration Department, under the 6P amnesty and legalisation exercise with their employer-to-be.

The 6P comprises registration, legalisation, amnesty, supervision, enforcement and deportation, and is scheduled to begin on Monday.

It is learnt that the plantation sector had been plagued by such a problem since the announcement of the biometric exercise earlier this year.

Deputy Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Alwi Ibrahim said the registration system would put a stop to cases of immigrants trying to create new identities after fleeing from their employers.

In the ongoing exercise, aimed at registering an estimated 1.8 million workers in the country, the foreigners would take part in a two-minute process that would see all their 10 fingerprints printed and recorded.

Apart from the fingerprints, details such as their current workplace, employers and salary, as well as their pictures are taken.

The information is stored in the Immigration Department's database, which is linked to agencies under the Home Ministry.

The system, which took more than a year to be developed, was produced using local technology. It can store up to 30 million entries.

"With the biometric system, we can detect if they (foreign workers) are registering using a different identity and will inform the employers-to-be.

"It will be up to the individual to come to an agreement with the previous employer," Alwi said.

Besides preventing foreign workers from fleeing their employers, the biometric system is also aimed at reducing social issues and crime.

Alwi assured employers that it was not compulsory to register their maids in this period as their biometric information could be taken when the maids renewed their permits. There are about 250,000 foreign maids working in Malaysia.

"As long as their work permits are valid, they can travel in and out of the country," he said, adding that the exercise was for the four main sectors, namely plantation, services, manufacturing and construction.

Master Builders Association Malaysia (MBAM) is appealing for the exercise to be extended until the end of this month.

Its president, Kwan Foh Kwai, said in a statement yesterday that because of the short notice given, contractors could not stop work immediately as they had tight contractual commitments.

"Contractors in rural and remote areas have logistical problems in bringing their foreign workers to the registration centres, which are said to be crowded."

MBAM members, Kwan said, were suffering from losses as a result of disruption in operations because of the registration process.