The government is likely to issue a large number of licences to private recruiting agencies before the end of its tenure, raising concerns about the transparency of the process.
Officials at the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry said about 80 applications have been submitted for licences to send workers abroad for jobs.
A committee, headed by a joint secretary of the ministry, has already held several meetings to scrutinise the applications, they added.
“We scrutinised the applications case by case, but I don’t know exactly how many applications have been finally recommended for issuing of licences,” a committee member told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday on condition of anonymity.
Ministry officials said there were around 1,200 licensed private recruiting agencies in the country. Of them, only 300 to 400 agencies were active in sending workers overseas.
However, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), 850 recruiting agencies are in operation.
A section of ministry officials hinted that a huge amount of money was involved in the process of issuing licences.
Some migration experts also remarked that it was unfair to issue licences towards the end of the incumbent government’s tenure.
“It is not fair to issue recruiting licences at the end of the government’s tenure as elections are nearing,” Tasneem Siddique, founding chair of the Dhaka University-based Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit, said yesterday.
Tasneem questioned why new licences were being given at a time when existing recruiting agencies were finding it hard to send workers abroad. She added that it raised questions of transparency.
On the other hand, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain said: “If someone wants to take a recruiting licence by depositing two million taka, what is wrong with issuing licenses?”
He also defended the timing of giving the new licences, saying, “It is a continuous process. We cannot stop issuing licenses.”
Ali Haider Chowdhury, secretary general of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies, said it was a citizen’s right to get a licence.
“The ministry will decide whether it is reasonable or not to issue new recruiting licences,” he said. “We have nothing to disagree on.”
Meanwhile, Zafar Ahmed Khan, secretary of the overseas employment ministry, said the licences would be given following the rules and regulations.
“What can we do if someone puts money in someone’s pocket? We have to give licences to those who fulfil the criteria and it is a continuous process,” Zafar told this correspondent at his office recently.
Mentioning that Brac, the country’s largest development organisation, had also applied for a licence, the secretary said, “We will give Brac a licence because we think such a reputed organisation can send workers transparently.”
