OFFICIAL disclosure in Dhaka on Wednesday said Malaysia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the city under which it would take 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers in next five years. But on Friday Malaysian Minister for Manpower cancelled out the claim in Kuala Lumpur saying that his country will not be taking the 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Malaysian Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot has been quoted in media reports yesterday as saying that the number actually referred to the number of Bangladeshis registered with the Labour Ministry in Bangladesh to work in 139 countries worldwide. The figure covered people for future employment in foreign countries, that’s not the number of Bangladeshi workers coming to Malaysia. Bangladesh’s Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam earlier signed the MoU in the city and it captured big banner headlines in national dailies in the following day. The rebuttal of the claim by Malaysian government left many to wonder in Bangladesh capital Dhaka what is wrong and what is at work behind all such mismatch. The Malaysian Minister said the perception these workers will be brought in Malaysia is not true. He said the figure covered Bangladesh government recruitment targets to 139 countries of the world. But what is at stake is that tens of thousands of young people in Bangladesh who are aspirants of taking a job in Malaysia and observers in Dhaka have been caught in the big dilemma. They wonder as to how and why such a big mistake and variation in official statements can occur and who will take responsibility of the misleading public disclosure. Why even the Malaysian Minister is defending the 1.5 million figure as the number for overall overseas employment. How then the figure can come in the MoU signed with his government. These are many questions that must find answers. Bangladesh government was highlighting Malaysia over the past years as the best manpower export destination. But manpower recruitment sources in the capital fear that the government was misleading the nation showing big manpower export contracts for political reasons, but they wondered how Malaysian government can be part of it. The government made sensational disclosure in 2012 saying Malaysia would take huge number of workers under government-to-government mechanism and carried out registration of 1.4 million young people through rural information centers. A similar MoU was also signed at that time. But consequently only 7000 workers were able to go to Malaysia as the process remained stalled for reasons not known to all. A powerful team again visited Malaysia in 2014 and on return made similar claim of big success to see eventual recruitment of several lakh workers. But 12,000 workers were recruited at the end. This time the declaration for recruitment of 1.5 million workers came only to be renounced by Malaysian government itself one day after the public disclosure. People wonder what is at fault.
