‘Private agencies ruined manpower export to Malaysia’

Secretary of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Begum Shamsun Nahar retorted when Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) leaders at an event on Saturday levelled accusations at the ministry for not sending workers there in the last nine years. Baira former president Nur Ali blamed the government for not being able to send workers to Malaysia regularly. “Who will take responsibility for the three million workers who could have gone to Malaysia for jobs in the last nine years?” he said during a conference on safe migration organised by Rapid Action Battalion and Baira. He claimed that some 1.4 million workers were demanded by Malaysia but only seven thousand workers could be sent. After nearly a four-year gap, Malaysia and Bangladesh introduced a government-to-government mechanism for recruitment of workers in November 2012, but only 10,000 workers were recruited. Expatriates Secretary Shamsun Nahar said the initiative was a good one and it would have allowed the workers to go without paying extra. “All the workers sent then got the jobs they were promised,” she said. But underhanded maneuvres by private recruiting agencies brought the process to a stop, she said. The expatriates secretary said that the ministry would soon create regulations for recruiting agencies. The secretary made the statement after RAB 3 CO Lt Col Tuhin Mohammad Masud recommended that to ensure safe journey, a classification of the agencies was needed. He said it would facilitate the government to strengthen the agencies and stop the brokers. Meanwhile, Baira Secretary general Ruhul Amin Swapan urged for monitoring of the agencies making classifications of the agencies. Nur Ali, a Baira leader, demanded that agencies should be monitored for five years before being approved for international recruitment. Secretary Nahar said they were working together with the International Organoisation for Migration (IOM) and had formulated a regulation and sent it to the concerned ministry for approval.