PIKAP wants cost of Indonesian maids to be determined by market

The National Association of Employment Agencies (Pikap) wants the cost of employing Indonesian maids to be determined by the market.

Its president, Datuk Raja Zulkepley Dahalan said the new cost of hiring maids from Indonesia, which was set at RM7,800 in September, could not attract them to come to Malaysia and was disadvantageous to foreign worker employment agencies.

"Based on the Indonesia Recruitment Agency (IRA), payment for the biodata of an Indonesian maid was between RM6,500 and RM8,000, not including the cost of levy, medical check-up, deposit and transport.

"We feel that a reasonable rate for an Indonesian maid is between RM10,000 and RM11,000," he told reporters, here, Tuesday.

Last week, Human Resource Minister Datuk Richard Riot said the Malaysia-Indonesia Joint Working Group on the employment and protection of domestic maids and employers agreed to set RM7,800 as the new cost for an Indonesian maid (RM6,000 borne by the employer and RM1,800 by the worker).

Raja Zulkepley explained that the fixed cost caused agencies to incur losses when they had to fork out extra money to cover the actual cost of bringing in maids from Indonesia.

"Many of our members sold their cars and houses to keep their business afloat," he said.