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Malaysia's Immigration Director-General Ruslin Jusoh paid a inspection visit to the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) building at the Johor Causeway on May 5.

This comes after the Menteri Besar (chief minister) of Johor Onn Hafiz Ghazi inspected the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar CIQ complex twice in the span of two weeks, complaining about the state of the crossing both times. 

New, improved formula

Ruslin visited the CIQ building "early in the morning" on May 5, and was shown around the complex by members of staff, observing the automated motorcycle immigration facilities, as well as speaking to travellers.

He also spoke to staff at the CIQ facility, before meeting with Onn Hafiz later in the morning.

Ruslin also spoke to the press, and addressed several issues that have become avenues of complaints in recent years.

Ruslin said that the Johor CIQ facility was the busiest land border crossing in the world, seeing 250,000 people using it every day, and 27 million people crossing it between Jan. 1 and May 3 2023.

This represented a challenge to find the issues that were being faced, such as filling vacancies for immigration officers, as well as scheduling difficulties.

New shift change formula

According to Bernama, Ruslin said his department would introduce a new shift change formula next week (May 8 onwards) to address peak-hour traffic congestion due to shift change.

Ruslin said that Onn Hafiz had raised the issue of immigration officers' changing shift at critical times, particularly in the morning when large numbers of Johoreans cross the Causeway, either to work or returning from night shift jobs.

The immigration department's new formula would make sure that the shift change would not take place during peak hours, particularly for those entering Singapore.

New officers coming

Ruslin also revealed that the Immigration Department had a requirement for 1,347 officers, but currently only had 1,074, a shortfall of 273.

According to The Star, 231 new recruits would complete their training by May 21, and 100 of them would be assigned to the Causeway CIQ, saying that current staffing levels were only about "80 per cent".

The Malaysian federal government had also approved 700 new posts, with the majority likely to be assigned to the three busiest locations, the CIQ facilities in Johor Bahru, the Second Link, and Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

This was in addition to several infrastructure improvement efforts, such as changing the layout of immigration counters that served vehicles, more parking bays for busses, and more motorcycle autogates.

Call out

Ruslin also met with Onn Hafiz later in the morning, discussing ways to improve service levels at the Causeway and the Second Link, including the enforcement of bus lanes.

Onn Hafiz has been in his position for a little over a year, and has taken to advocating for improvements at the Malaysia-Singapore border crossings, making a visit to the Causeway in May 2022, just two months after being appointed.

His two most recent efforts were two morning peak hour visits to the Causeway, the first on Apr. 19 just before Hari Raya, and again on May 2, complaining about insufficient open counters both times.

During the Apr. 19 visit, he complained specifically about the human resource issues, citing poor shift change scheduling and telling staff they had to "sort out" the problems, calling on Ruslin to come visit the Causeway himself.

This comes as Malaysian federal politicians have cast a closer eye on issues at the Causeway, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim addressing complaints, even mentioning that Singapore's President Halimah Yacob had spoken to him about long queues during holiday periods.

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Top image via Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia/Facebook