The Human Resources Ministry wants all restaurants in the country to only recruit locals as cooks from July 1, says it’s minister M Kulasegaran.
He, however, said all operators would be given up to the end of the year to ensure only local chefs work in their restaurants.
He said this was as the regulation permitting locals as cooks in all restaurants will be effective from January 1, 2019.
“So we want locals to be employed as cooks. There will be no compromise… we are giving you notice to do it by December 31. If you don’t do it, we can’t help it,” he told Bernama News Channel yesterday.
Earlier, Kulasegaran held a meeting with the Indian Restaurant Operators Association (Prisma) in Petaling Jaya.
He said the ministry will be holding more meetings with Prisma as well as the Indian Muslim Restaurant Operators Association (Presma) soon on the implementation of local cooks in restaurants.
Kulasegaran said the move would be able to reduce the dependence of local restaurants on foreign labour and ensure the quality of local food served.
BN would have been proud of this bossy minister. His demand has to be the silliest and most illiberal idea since the election.
Eating out is supposed to be an adventure and very many times people will choose a foreign cuisine to enjoy the change. How are Malaysian cooks going to be able to convincingly dish up authentic French, Italian, Korean, Japanese dishes that make the grade in just one year?
Any global city worth its salt is stuffing with foreign restaurants, reassuringly staffed by people from the region advertised. London has several Malaysian restaurants manned… by Malaysians for example. What would be the reaction if all these were sent packing home and replaced by Brits, who don’t even know how to cook the rice to the right consistency?
Malaysia has many real and serious problems to do with foreign labour, which is being abused in domestic service and on palm plantations and elsewhere. Such workers and the ill treatment they endure are a shame on Malaysia’s reputation and the minister ought to be concentrating on countering auch appalling abuses of human rights instead of ruining everyone’s nights out!