Reza Mahmud :
Bangladeshi workers keen to go to Malaysia worried seriously as a circle is trying utmost to make government agree to send manpower through a syndicate.
Sources said, an unholy circle is trying utmost to form a syndicate for sending workers to Malaysia after signing a Memorandum of Understanding in this regard between the two countries on December 19 last year.
A source said, Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and Expatriates’ Welfare Minister Imran Ahmad are due to visit Kuala Lumpur in the last week of this month to join an event there. In this trip the manpower recruiting issue also would be discussed, the source said. Malaysia is one of the bigest labour markets for the Bangladeshi workers.
As per the data of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training, more than 10,57,249 Banglaeshi workers went to Malaysia since 1990.
Meanwhile, the real figure is most high. The then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad stopped manpower recruiting from Bangladesh on September 1 in 2018 after finding irregularities in recruting labour.
A syndicate was formed then to send workers to the country from Bangladesh was responsible for this. In several investigations it had been found that the syndicate charged workers Tk three lakh instead of the government’s fixed Tk 33,700. The 10 agencies’ syndicate bagged Tk 8297 crore and 91 lakh extra money from the
migrant workers. As per the previous bitter experiences, the migrant workers said sending of manpower through syndicate means charging unusual extra migration fees which must be unbearable for them.
Besides, leaders and general members of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) also protested the efforts of forming such a syndicate saying it will be harmful for the overall national interests.
“If a syndicate be formed for sending our manpower, they must collect seriously high from the migrant workers. It may not be possible for them to realise migration costs in their scheduled tenure,” Shameem Ahmed Chowdhury Noman, former Secretary General of BAIRA told The New Nation.
He said that forming such a syndicate means most of the BAIRA members would be deprived of doing business of sending manpower to the East Asian country.
When contacted, Mohammad Ishaque of Shimon Overseas told The New Nation on Wednesday, “The circle is trying to form a syndicate from Malaysia. But they failed so far for the strict policy of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the Expatriates’ Welfare Minister Imran Ahmad to protecting our workers interests.”
When contacted, Expatriates’ Welfare Minister Imran Ahmad told The New Nation, “I am not in favour of syndicate or not against those, but I am only favouring our workers interests.”
“I want and trying to open the large labour market soon,” the Minister said.
Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui, Professor of the University of Dhaka and the founding Chair of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) said government should suspend the licenses of those circles behind the syndicate. Because, they were liable for suspending the vast labour market for our workers for about four years.
BAIRA sources said, Bangaldeshi origin Malaysian citizen Datok Amin bin Abdul Nur was behind the previous syndicate also is trying to form a new one.
Recruiting agency leaders said that former BAIRA Secretary General Ruhul Amin Swapan, the owner of Catharsis International is allegedly associating Datok Nur but he claimed it was propaganda against him.
