Chong: Don’t use taxpayers’ money to help victims who have been warned

PETALING JAYA: More funds should be used on the battle to wipe out job scams instead of spending them on the victims who were lured to work overseas for these syndicates.

MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong (pic) said warnings on job scams have been circulated all the time to keep people informed of such crimes, but they seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

“Of course it is a good government initiative to draw up plans to help the victims abroad but why must it burden the rakyat?

“Taxpayers’ hard-earned money should not be spent on helping these victims, who had already been warned hundreds of times,” he said when contacted on Friday.

Chong was responding to an allocation of RM10mil under Kumpulan Wang Amanah Rakyat Malaysia Luar Negeri in Budget 2024, which was announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim yesterday.

The fund will be used to help those who fell victim to employment fraud syndicates.

Chong suggested that the money could be put to better use, such as in operations to identify and cripple job scam syndicates.

“If these syndicates no longer exist, there will be no more victims,” he added.

Chong explained that currently, these victims would get help through the Malaysian embassies in the respective countries.

“Raising money to bring these victims home has never been a big issue.

“Usually, the embassies would contact us, and we would coordinate with the victims’ families to plan and find ways to bring their loved ones home,” he added.

Chong said the allocation, meant to show care and sympathy for the victims, might send out the wrong message to the public, making them misunderstand that it is okay to try their luck with these syndicates because there is government funding to help them.

Malaysians Against Rape, Assault and Snatch Thief founder Dave Avran said that apart from the fund, there would also be programmes to educate the public on job scams.

“The public needs to be well informed on the latest tactics used by these scammers and must be equipped with the knowledge of how to check with the respective authorities on the matter.

“Similarly, the increased budget for the National Scam Response Center should be used to create awareness, as realistically, we cannot eradicate scams,” he said.

Avran also said the soon-to-be launched National Fraud Portal to track and freeze mule accounts is long overdue.

“Any initiative to speed up the process of getting money back to the victims is necessary and welcomed,” he added.