Highlighting The Rise Of Foreign Workers In The Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Rail Project, DPR Members: Must Prioritize Indonesian Nakers

Foreign Labor (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Member of Commission IX of the House of Representatives (DPR) from the PKS faction, Kurniasih Mufidayati, responded to the finding of Bappenas that there were welders from foreign workers (TKA) working on the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project. National-scale infrastructure projects involving foreign contractors must prioritize Indonesian workers.

"The Indonesian workforce is very capable of working on various world-scale infrastructure projects," he said in a statement in Jakarta, Saturday, February 12.

Moreover, he explained, currently Indonesian workers are still being hit by the impact of the pandemic. "What we hope is to optimize the Indonesian workforce because it has enormous potential, especially in the midst of the pandemic, many are affected, laid off or reduced in income," said Mufida as quoted by ANTARA.

He said that the spirit of prioritizing Indonesian workers should be carried out because President Joko Widodo himself wants to make Indonesia Gold with superior Indonesian human resources.

The spirit of President Jokowi, he said, must be implemented by prioritizing the use of Indonesian workers in all types of positions available.

"If you have to use foreign workers, there is an obligation to include accompanying workers from Indonesia for technology transfer. The question is for foreign workers here, is it obeyed that there are assistant workers for technology transfer?" he explained.

Regarding technology transfer, Mufida said that since the beginning of the submission of the Plan for the Use of Foreign Workers (RPTKA), the government should have known the allocation of foreign workers in Indonesia for certain jobs so that at the beginning it could be anticipated by sending Indonesian workers to learn methods by upskilling and reskilling.

He reminded that around 1,500 Indonesian migrant workers have worked on infrastructure projects in several countries, including sending 500 experts for power plant projects in several countries such as Iraq, Bangladesh and Vietnam.

"This means that our workforce is capable and recognized by the world," he said.