Ensure fairness in manpower export to Malaysia

It involves the interests and priorities of both parties when it comes to sending and employing migrant workers. Countries recruiting Bangladeshi labours benefit from our toiling workers, while Bangladesh also enjoys enormous gains in remittance inflows and employment of its citizens in foreign countries. When things are interest-driven and based on priority, sending workers from Bangladesh to Malaysia deserves fairness and a low-cost facility. As reported in this daily on Thursday, a syndication conspiracy is going on to capture the huge labour market in Malaysia by 25 local recruiters. A vested group in Malaysia is also active in this nefarious scheme. Local recruiters have demanded fair competition among all recruiting agencies in Bangladesh to get a fair share of the manpower business.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, several recruiters, who are also members of the BAIRA (Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies ), said that if the syndicate is facilitated by the vested quarters, many problems will arise. They include but are not limited to irregularities and corruption in the sector. The recruiters said that migration costs would increase while anti-state activities of several individuals of the vested quarter will be conducted as in the past. The implementation of overseas employment of 1,000 workers in each upazila, as per the prime minister’s instruction, will be hampered as a consequence of manpower syndication. Negative reports on irregularities and corruption in domestic and foreign media will increase significantly. And this has already begun. As a result, the government’s reputation and that of the country will be seriously damaged. If a limited number of recruiting agencies work, it will reduce the speed of sending workers while hundreds of agencies will be deprived of their right to do business despite having the capacity. Instead of expanding, the labour market is likely to be closed at any time– as before– as a direct consequence. Besides, irregularities, anarchy, and rivalries will increase in the manpower export sector. The problems outlined by recruiters seem realistic.

It would be disgraceful for an independent country if Malaysia imports workers through a syndicate only from Bangladesh but does so in regular ways from 13 other source countries without the involvement of any cartel. The Malaysian labour market, which holds the potential for huge remittances, was closed in 2018 due to the syndicate’s unscrupulous activities. It is to be mentioned that from 2017 to 2018 Malaysia and Bangladesh– according to an agreement signed between the countries– allowed only 10 manpower recruiting agencies to send migrant workers to Malaysia. However, finally, the Malaysian government withdrew from the agreement due to curtailing of and corruption in the recruitment of workers. With the introduction of the new system, aspirant workers had hoped that worker exploitation, human trafficking, and charging exorbitant fees by recruitment agencies would no longer be in place. However, the outcome was horrifying. The Malaysia- bound job-seekers hardly benefited from that G2G agreement as recruiters did not obey the government’s instructions. 

The selected 10 recruiting agencies–given undue favour– charged around Tk 300,000 to Tk 400,000 each for getting a job in Malaysia, ignoring the G2G plus arrangement of Tk 36,000 including airfare (one way) for a worker to Malaysia. At one stage, the Malaysian government had to scrap the system. In December last year, Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur signed an MoU, allowing all valid recruiters to send workers from Bangladesh to Malaysia. Bypassing the spirit of the memo, Malaysian Human Resource Minister M Saravanan asked Bangladesh to send workers only through 10 recruiters contravening the MoU in January. According to the provisions of C (V) and C (VI) of Appendix B of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), open competition among all licensed recruiters was mentioned. The shift in policy and disregard for the bilateral agreement sparked criticism in both countries. Under the given situation, we urge the government to stand by its position of establishing a free and fair competition system among all valid recruiters. The government should disregard any pressure in favour of syndication.