Malaysian ban on manpower import from Bangladesh
Sunday, 7 October 2007
The worst yet not unexpected has happened. The opportunity that came by after much cajoling and diplomatic persuasion is now lost because of an apparent insatiable lust for money of a section of Bangladeshi manpower agents and some people in the Malaysian outsourcing companies. The Malaysian authorities in the backdrop of a chain of ugly events over Bangladeshi workers on their soil have decided to freeze manpower import from Bangladesh.
The beginning was not at all auspicious when Malaysia lifted its restriction on the recruitment of Bangladesh workers during the final year of the tenure of the immediate past political government that deserved credit for being successful in convincing the Malaysian government to restart recruitment of Bangladeshi workers. The Malaysian authorities expressed its desire to employ more than 0.1 million workers in phases and set a time-limit for such recruitment. But as usual the greed factor came into play its part and create disruption in the entire process. Problems of all sorts, including irregularities on the part of local recruiting agencies and the outsourcing companies in Malaysia and rivalries among the manpower agents over the share in the pie surfaced, resulting in deceleration in the recruitment process. Despite agreement between the recruiting agents and the government to take only Tk.84000 from each workers for a job in Malaysia, in most cases, the amount realised from a worker stood between Tk. 0.2 million and Tk. 0.23 million by manpower agents. The excess amount in most cases was shared by Bangladeshi recruiters and agents of Malaysian outsourcing companies.
Such excess payment is a common event here. But what had made the situation more complicated was the recruitment of workers against fake demands from Malaysian employers. Hundreds of workers after landing in Malaysia could realise that they had been cheated. Many of the unfortunate workers were kept confined to private houses, and were maltreated. Malaysian newspapers also carried reports, supported by pictures, on such incidents. Some workers were even attacked by local hoodlums when the former were staging a sit-in demonstration in front of the Bangladesh mission in Kuala Lumpur. More than 50 workers stranded at the Kuala Lumpur airport were brought back by the government recently and ensured refund of the money paid to the local recruiting agents. All these events must have annoyed the Malaysian authorities. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Haji Ahmed Badawi assured Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed during a meeting on the sidelines of the UNGA session in New York to look into the problems encountered by the Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia. However, quite surprisingly, the Malaysian ban on the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers came about a week after that meeting.
The discontinuation of the recruitment by Malaysian in the backdrop of the shrinking employment opportunities for Bangladeshi workers in the Middle Eastern countries could prove to be too costly for the country's economy where remittance earning plays a very important role. The United Arab Emirates has already asked over 0.2 million Bangladeshi illegal workers to leave the country by the end of the current month. In such a dismal scenario, the South Korean government has expressed its willingness to take a good number of Bangladeshi workers and the ambassador of that country to Bangladesh has assured all concerned that the recruitment would begin by the end of the current year. The ambassador said his country is ready to take even 10000 workers from Bangladesh a year provided they know Korean language. It is expected that the authorities concerned would do the needful to exploit the opportunity offered by South Korea which pays decent wages and offers better working environment to foreign workers. On the top of everything, the government must stop the recurrence of ugly incidents that had been taking place with the seekers of jobs abroad. These events do seriously hurt the already battered image of the country internationally.
The beginning was not at all auspicious when Malaysia lifted its restriction on the recruitment of Bangladesh workers during the final year of the tenure of the immediate past political government that deserved credit for being successful in convincing the Malaysian government to restart recruitment of Bangladeshi workers. The Malaysian authorities expressed its desire to employ more than 0.1 million workers in phases and set a time-limit for such recruitment. But as usual the greed factor came into play its part and create disruption in the entire process. Problems of all sorts, including irregularities on the part of local recruiting agencies and the outsourcing companies in Malaysia and rivalries among the manpower agents over the share in the pie surfaced, resulting in deceleration in the recruitment process. Despite agreement between the recruiting agents and the government to take only Tk.84000 from each workers for a job in Malaysia, in most cases, the amount realised from a worker stood between Tk. 0.2 million and Tk. 0.23 million by manpower agents. The excess amount in most cases was shared by Bangladeshi recruiters and agents of Malaysian outsourcing companies.
Such excess payment is a common event here. But what had made the situation more complicated was the recruitment of workers against fake demands from Malaysian employers. Hundreds of workers after landing in Malaysia could realise that they had been cheated. Many of the unfortunate workers were kept confined to private houses, and were maltreated. Malaysian newspapers also carried reports, supported by pictures, on such incidents. Some workers were even attacked by local hoodlums when the former were staging a sit-in demonstration in front of the Bangladesh mission in Kuala Lumpur. More than 50 workers stranded at the Kuala Lumpur airport were brought back by the government recently and ensured refund of the money paid to the local recruiting agents. All these events must have annoyed the Malaysian authorities. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Haji Ahmed Badawi assured Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed during a meeting on the sidelines of the UNGA session in New York to look into the problems encountered by the Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia. However, quite surprisingly, the Malaysian ban on the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers came about a week after that meeting.
The discontinuation of the recruitment by Malaysian in the backdrop of the shrinking employment opportunities for Bangladeshi workers in the Middle Eastern countries could prove to be too costly for the country's economy where remittance earning plays a very important role. The United Arab Emirates has already asked over 0.2 million Bangladeshi illegal workers to leave the country by the end of the current month. In such a dismal scenario, the South Korean government has expressed its willingness to take a good number of Bangladeshi workers and the ambassador of that country to Bangladesh has assured all concerned that the recruitment would begin by the end of the current year. The ambassador said his country is ready to take even 10000 workers from Bangladesh a year provided they know Korean language. It is expected that the authorities concerned would do the needful to exploit the opportunity offered by South Korea which pays decent wages and offers better working environment to foreign workers. On the top of everything, the government must stop the recurrence of ugly incidents that had been taking place with the seekers of jobs abroad. These events do seriously hurt the already battered image of the country internationally.