REPORTS in a national English daily on Thursday said the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry has decided to allow workers to take jobs in Malaysia on visas secured by private recruiting agencies. It was not allowed over the past three years since the signing of an agreement with Malaysia in 2012 which provided for sending unskilled workers only under a government to government (G2G) arrangement, wiping out private recruiting agencies from the job. News report said over 14 lakh workers had enlisted to go to Malaysia under the G2G arrangement but around 8,000 were only able to go proving that the government involvement in the process was wrong. But many desperate job seekers, primarily in Malaysian plantation, construction and manufacturing sectors did not sit idle in the meantime. They took to the illegal migration using the sea routes falling hostage to human traffickers who came up eventually to fill up the vacuum. Quoting a senior official of Bureau of Manpower Export and Training (BMET) the report said that the government had stopped recruitment by private agencies to stop illegal exploitation of workers. Now justifying the return of private recruitment agents, he said it aims at stopping illegal migration and it is clear that the reversal of the decision has been prompted in the light of massive attempts of job aspirants to reach Malaysia using the sea routes. It has already creating the biggest human tragedy at sea and discovery of mass graves and dead bodies in Thai and Malaysian jungles has tainted the country’s image abroad. But the government must explain why its G2G policy failed and why it did not anticipate that involvement of party machinery in recruitment and political overture in such matter would backfire. BMET official’s disclosure said several lakh skilled and unskilled workers left the country for Malaysia over the last three years without its clearance ignoring government ban. Many of them left the country through the airport bribing the immigration personnel while others took to the sea. The new government order now says BMET will give clearance to job aspirants if they come with valid job permits through private recruitment agency. In fact the government decision to take over recruitment of workers to Malaysia was wrong from the beginning and The New Nation had also warned of the setback through reports and editorials. By relinquishing its hold or other way by opening the recruitment to private agencies, the government has now corrected its wrong decision of becoming recruiting agent itself. The government should be able to regulate the ways of sending manpower abroad. But several lakhs people have paid dearly for the government’s mistake in the meantime. Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) has also blamed the government for failing to send workers to Malaysia when over a million workers went to that country from Nepal, India and Pakistan. The fact is that the government is proving too inefficient in aspect of governance and feels no accountability. So the Ministers are merrily in power without having the burden to prove success.
