Thursday, January 02, 2014

Foreign wives in Malaysia still face the same problems as before?

My ex-classmate since Std 1, migrated to Australia mainly because his Thai wife had to renew her social visa yearly and she had no right to work in Malaysia. That was more than 20 years ago. He gave up his Malaysian citizenship reluctantly as he likes Malaysia and misses his Malaysian friends and foods.

Since Australia introduced GST in 2000, the fees of his accountancy practice had increased sufficiently to enable him to visit Malaysia and Thailand at least once a year. By the way, he commented that we never hear of practising accountants complaining about the introduction of GST in Malaysia, simply because they are rubbing their hands in glee, in anticipation of the expected windfall in increased business. Based on his Australian experience, he told me to watch out for small companies having to wind up their businesses for failing to account for their tax collected, to the government.

Neal K's article, 'Why I had to leave Malaysia' in Free Malaysia Today, revealed for a fact, that the foreign wives situation remains the same, unless they are from certain favoured countries...

Excerpt:

"Raven, in his 40’s now, came to England to study while in his 20’s, met a beautiful French lady and eventually married her in 1997. Thankfully, his wife Phillipa liked Malaysia and was agreeable to settling down in her husband’s birthplace. As the first born son with filial obligations Raven couldn’t be happier and he quickly got a lecturing job in KL.

Six years and two children later Phillipa was still with her social visa, which meant annual renewal and no right to work to support her husband. Besides being a trained accountant she was also a qualified French teacher…both skills she was eager to use but vehemently being denied by her host country.

As for her PR application, which she was eligible for after five years, the response was always the same…‘there’s a long wait…. more than 20,000 people waiting, this could take 20 years’."

"...And then the most frustrating thing is when you see obviously Indonesian looking people excitedly showing off their new ICs! Ask them how long they’ve been in the country and they tell you 'a year and a half!'

There was of course the ‘friendlier’ means of getting things done but the young couple could not afford ‘that way’, and neither would their conscience allow for it.

So Raven and Phillipa chose conscience over corruption and decided to give the system more time. After putting up with it unsuccessfully for another two years, the panic button began to flash as the children were ready for formal education."

More:
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2013/10/11/why-i-had-to-leave-malaysia/

Link

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