KUCHING: The Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa) has appealed for exemption to a requirement under a recent amendment to the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) for the plantation sector to contribute towards the HRD levy.
“Foremost, the plantation sector conducts the bulk of its training for foreign workers with properly moduled in-house training courses like harvesting, field upkeep and others.
“These trainings focused on each company’s needs and the plantation industry has been operating effectively using such methodology,” said Soppoa in a statement.
“Therefore, it is most inappropriate for the government to impose the levy on the plantation sector for training of foreign workers and is viewed as further taxing the plantation sector,” it added.
Soppoa opposes the amendment by the ministry to include the plantation sector and appeals for exemption from the amendment.
The association also appeals to the state government to assist the plantation sector on the issue.
It said the plantation sector is one of the most heavily taxed sectors, the majority of which are federal taxes.
It added that any further tax would only ruin the development of the palm oil industry in Sarawak which is a key component in the development of the state and its people.
“We appeal to the minister to consider exempting the amended act for the plantation sector as the bulk of the employees in the sector are foreigners who only require basic moduled in-house training for job- related activities.
“The plantation sector is still facing acute shortage of workers due to the pandemic and still experiencing heavy loss of revenue due to shortage of harvesters,” said its spokesperson.
“Plantations should be allowed to utilise whatever monetary resources left to normalise operations to bring back much needed revenues to the country through normalised production and export of quality palm oil products.”
Human Resource Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan on Feb 26 announced an amendment to the Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Berhad Act 2001 (Act 612) Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Berhad (Amendment of First schedule) Order 2021 to include the plantation sector.
