Removing incongruities in manpower supply chain
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Abdul Alim
So, what is the way out? It is simply awareness and information dissemination that can ensure a recruit to pay as near as possible to the actual official rate of a recruiting agent. He does not know where to find genuine agencies, he does not know how to make a passport, has no idea of the whole process and formalities and so many other things. Being illiterate, it is almost an impossible task for him. So he has to depend on someone who knows, even by paying a high cost. In the last few years, hordes of NGOs have entered the migration sector, and most of them are working on awareness building. In every seminar, we hear accounts of stupendous activities of awareness programmes by all the big and small NGOs. If what they say is true, then 160 million people of Bangladesh must have been made aware a few times over. But as a ground level operator, I personally have not come across a single recruit made aware by an NGO. Here are a few suggestions to improve the prevailing situation: l The responsibility of ensuring correct information to recruits, well before heshe makes the decision to migrate, must be entrusted 100 per cent on the recruiting agencies. It is only the recruiting agent who can compel the broker to bring the aspirant migrant for briefing on the exact terms of the contract before heshe is accepted or recruited. The government should practice zero-tolerance on this issue. To reduce the impact of brokers, the government should allow recruiting agents to mention actual official rates in their advertisements. This will create a bench-mark for recruits. When they know the actual official rate, they may refuse to pay brokers too high commissions for the services they get from them. It will give them a negotiating leverage. Moreover, it will have a restraining effect on recruiting agents to declare publicly any untoward cost. But this option will generate another problem. Once declared officially in the ad, how the agent will justify the built-in commission he pays to the foreign agent? There is no legal way to send money abroad for commission payment. Though it is a 'hush hush' matter, everybody knows that recruiting agents pay foreign commission through Hundi. Sri Lanka has come out with a very pragmatic solution. Their regulatory body SLBFE (same as our BMET) made a thorough research by sending officersresearchers to every receiving country to bench-mark minimum cost required to send their people, and came out with specific country-wise and category-wise practical migration cost estimates, that not only includes commission for foreign agents, but also profit for recruiting agents and local brokers. They realised the essentiality of brokers in this trade due to social backwardness. The agents are required to submit a statement of all expenses and if the agent's estimate tallies to that of SLBFE's estimates, allowing 10 per cent plus minus, they approve it. Once approved, the agent can send foreign agent's commission officially through banking channel and also pay the local broker. This ensures transparency, stabilises the market and all sides feel secure. Bangladesh can adopt the Sri Lankan model. We will now focus on the foreign side where actual visa trading takes place. Following are some reasons that compel a recruiting agent to resort to visa purchasing at a high cost. Impediments in mobility of agents to do direct marketing: To avoid costly intermediaries, it is essential that agents be able to easily visit receiving countries for direct marketing. But difficulties on obtaining visa for most of the destination countries compels the recruiting agents to depend on foreign brokers, chain of brokers (sometimes even brokers located in a third country) and smart Bangladeshis working there for obtaining demand orders. Once a foreign broker hooks a demand, he puts it up on auction among Bangladeshi recruiting agencies. The highest bidder gets it and naturally the cost burden is shifted to the hapless recruit. There are other problems too. To make the service contract easier and alluring, such brokers usually suppress true information, even from the client recruiting agent, of the proficiency level of workers demanded by the employer. So, the employer gets sub-par workers that can breed conflict between employer and employee over time. Direct marketing also removes such discrepancies and agents know exactly the type of worker the employer needs. The government can open a dialogue with destination countries to allow visit visa to agents on the basis of Note Verbal issued by the Foreign Ministry. Marketing incapability of most of our recruiting agencies: This is a major factor that affects migration both in quality and quantity. Out of our 1000 plus recruiting agencies, hardly about 100 of them are really capable of procuring demand from abroad. But even out of this meager figure, most of them procure demands through overseas recruiting agents, Bangladeshi brokers living in host countries andor staff or personnel (usually IndianPakistanis) of employers and naturally, in doing so, they have to pay hefty commissions. Most of our known stalwart agents are doing business in this way, and once they procure big demands, a good number of other agents become sub-agents of big ones. Agents doing direct marketing with employers, settling terms of service by direct interaction with employers, getting exact information of the types of workers needed from horse's mouth, are a rare breed. I will not be surprised if the figure is not even 20 agents who are doing business in direct negotiation with real employers. What is the way out? The government will do well to categorise the agents, say by grading A to C. The principle should be not on volume of business, but credibility, direct marketing capability, low migration cost, transparency and proven mindset in pursuing best migration practices and most importantly humane attitude in doing business. The 'A' category should be allowed total credibility by the authorities, like they may be allowed to go for direct recruitment without taking prior permission, assisted in all efforts to fast-track, given immediate assistance in obtaining visit visa for owners or important staff, and so on. The key word is 'credibility'. The other categories can be determined on the degree of credibility they may command. It will not be difficult to segregate, because government functionaries who are dealing directly with agencies know their characteristics. More brainstorming should be done on categorisation. Political and administrative will is imperative. But once done, it will place us miles ahead in developing this sector and remove the stigma. Visa trading by expatriate Bangladeshi agents in some major destination countries: In the absence of appropriate marketing approach by recruiting agencies (for varied reasons), a class of Bangladeshi expatriate-worker-turned freelance agents have grown in major destination countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, UAE and Libya. They are living in those countries for many years (some by matrimony, as in Malaysia), speak host country's language, are articulate, smart, and have marketing abilities. They are the main players in visa trading and instrumental in raising the cost of migration. Due to their resident status, they are able to keep in touch with employers, bribe their staff, pursue the long process of block visa approval, and once issued they put the demand for auction among agents in Bangladesh. They have little concern for better terms of contract, for welfare of workers or for safe migration. Some major players have close linkages with mighty and powerful people in both ends, who protect them. They are few in numbers, but they control 80 per cent of the visa trading business. They have no accountability, no income tax, and no Emigration Ordinance 1982 to control them. Riding on a huge supply push and demand crunch, they get away with any price they ask for. Our embassies know them very well, BAIRA knows them, and agents know them and even the host governments know them. They are very much well-known figures. The host governments frequently raise this issue in bilateral discussions and they are willing to root out these people if supportive responses are there from our government. But nobody acts against them because of their clout. Unless they are whisked out from the host countries, our dream of reasonable migration costs may never be achieved. Our government should start hands-on dialogue with host governments to blacklist and deport them. With bio-metric technology, the host government can permanently bar them from re-entry. BAIRA should be empowered. As a trade body, BAIRA knows who is what and who does or is doing what. They can be entrusted to work as a watch-dog not only on its members, but also on our embassies, missions and its officials. On BAIRA's report against a recruiting agent, the ministry should deactivate, even if temporarily, such errant recruiters. To dispel any scope for partisan role by BAIRA or witch-hunting, a representative of the ministry (not below Deputy Secretary level) and official from BMET (not below Director level) should be a member of such a decision making committee. If this option it implemented, it will be effective. To bring local brokers under legal fold and accountability, a proposal is in circulation to give them legal status. This will create more problems than it can solve. Once they are empowered by legal status, their scope for collecting huge amount of money from aspirant recruits will increase and cases of vanishing brokers with people's money will be on the rise. Moreover, no recruiting agent will authorise a broker to collect money on his behalf due to the same apprehension. The target should be to defuse or make redundant the role of brokers by stages through different effective awareness programmes and not to promote their presence. By any count, the manpower export sector is the life-line of our economy and so it will remain at least for a decade or more. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders to work together to remove all incongruities in the supply chain. Manpower export is subject to forces beyond control of the recruiters alone. BAIRA should work with the government and other stakeholders, like media, NGOs, donors, foreign governments, overseas trade bodies, etc. to ensure a safe and sustainable manpower export regime. It must be a hands-on effort, not just perfunctory to tide over the present crises. The writer is a recruiting agent and he can be reached at e-mail: satrading8@yahoo.com
So, what is the way out? It is simply awareness and information dissemination that can ensure a recruit to pay as near as possible to the actual official rate of a recruiting agent. He does not know where to find genuine agencies, he does not know how to make a passport, has no idea of the whole process and formalities and so many other things. Being illiterate, it is almost an impossible task for him. So he has to depend on someone who knows, even by paying a high cost. In the last few years, hordes of NGOs have entered the migration sector, and most of them are working on awareness building. In every seminar, we hear accounts of stupendous activities of awareness programmes by all the big and small NGOs. If what they say is true, then 160 million people of Bangladesh must have been made aware a few times over. But as a ground level operator, I personally have not come across a single recruit made aware by an NGO. Here are a few suggestions to improve the prevailing situation: l The responsibility of ensuring correct information to recruits, well before heshe makes the decision to migrate, must be entrusted 100 per cent on the recruiting agencies. It is only the recruiting agent who can compel the broker to bring the aspirant migrant for briefing on the exact terms of the contract before heshe is accepted or recruited. The government should practice zero-tolerance on this issue. To reduce the impact of brokers, the government should allow recruiting agents to mention actual official rates in their advertisements. This will create a bench-mark for recruits. When they know the actual official rate, they may refuse to pay brokers too high commissions for the services they get from them. It will give them a negotiating leverage. Moreover, it will have a restraining effect on recruiting agents to declare publicly any untoward cost. But this option will generate another problem. Once declared officially in the ad, how the agent will justify the built-in commission he pays to the foreign agent? There is no legal way to send money abroad for commission payment. Though it is a 'hush hush' matter, everybody knows that recruiting agents pay foreign commission through Hundi. Sri Lanka has come out with a very pragmatic solution. Their regulatory body SLBFE (same as our BMET) made a thorough research by sending officersresearchers to every receiving country to bench-mark minimum cost required to send their people, and came out with specific country-wise and category-wise practical migration cost estimates, that not only includes commission for foreign agents, but also profit for recruiting agents and local brokers. They realised the essentiality of brokers in this trade due to social backwardness. The agents are required to submit a statement of all expenses and if the agent's estimate tallies to that of SLBFE's estimates, allowing 10 per cent plus minus, they approve it. Once approved, the agent can send foreign agent's commission officially through banking channel and also pay the local broker. This ensures transparency, stabilises the market and all sides feel secure. Bangladesh can adopt the Sri Lankan model. We will now focus on the foreign side where actual visa trading takes place. Following are some reasons that compel a recruiting agent to resort to visa purchasing at a high cost. Impediments in mobility of agents to do direct marketing: To avoid costly intermediaries, it is essential that agents be able to easily visit receiving countries for direct marketing. But difficulties on obtaining visa for most of the destination countries compels the recruiting agents to depend on foreign brokers, chain of brokers (sometimes even brokers located in a third country) and smart Bangladeshis working there for obtaining demand orders. Once a foreign broker hooks a demand, he puts it up on auction among Bangladeshi recruiting agencies. The highest bidder gets it and naturally the cost burden is shifted to the hapless recruit. There are other problems too. To make the service contract easier and alluring, such brokers usually suppress true information, even from the client recruiting agent, of the proficiency level of workers demanded by the employer. So, the employer gets sub-par workers that can breed conflict between employer and employee over time. Direct marketing also removes such discrepancies and agents know exactly the type of worker the employer needs. The government can open a dialogue with destination countries to allow visit visa to agents on the basis of Note Verbal issued by the Foreign Ministry. Marketing incapability of most of our recruiting agencies: This is a major factor that affects migration both in quality and quantity. Out of our 1000 plus recruiting agencies, hardly about 100 of them are really capable of procuring demand from abroad. But even out of this meager figure, most of them procure demands through overseas recruiting agents, Bangladeshi brokers living in host countries andor staff or personnel (usually IndianPakistanis) of employers and naturally, in doing so, they have to pay hefty commissions. Most of our known stalwart agents are doing business in this way, and once they procure big demands, a good number of other agents become sub-agents of big ones. Agents doing direct marketing with employers, settling terms of service by direct interaction with employers, getting exact information of the types of workers needed from horse's mouth, are a rare breed. I will not be surprised if the figure is not even 20 agents who are doing business in direct negotiation with real employers. What is the way out? The government will do well to categorise the agents, say by grading A to C. The principle should be not on volume of business, but credibility, direct marketing capability, low migration cost, transparency and proven mindset in pursuing best migration practices and most importantly humane attitude in doing business. The 'A' category should be allowed total credibility by the authorities, like they may be allowed to go for direct recruitment without taking prior permission, assisted in all efforts to fast-track, given immediate assistance in obtaining visit visa for owners or important staff, and so on. The key word is 'credibility'. The other categories can be determined on the degree of credibility they may command. It will not be difficult to segregate, because government functionaries who are dealing directly with agencies know their characteristics. More brainstorming should be done on categorisation. Political and administrative will is imperative. But once done, it will place us miles ahead in developing this sector and remove the stigma. Visa trading by expatriate Bangladeshi agents in some major destination countries: In the absence of appropriate marketing approach by recruiting agencies (for varied reasons), a class of Bangladeshi expatriate-worker-turned freelance agents have grown in major destination countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, UAE and Libya. They are living in those countries for many years (some by matrimony, as in Malaysia), speak host country's language, are articulate, smart, and have marketing abilities. They are the main players in visa trading and instrumental in raising the cost of migration. Due to their resident status, they are able to keep in touch with employers, bribe their staff, pursue the long process of block visa approval, and once issued they put the demand for auction among agents in Bangladesh. They have little concern for better terms of contract, for welfare of workers or for safe migration. Some major players have close linkages with mighty and powerful people in both ends, who protect them. They are few in numbers, but they control 80 per cent of the visa trading business. They have no accountability, no income tax, and no Emigration Ordinance 1982 to control them. Riding on a huge supply push and demand crunch, they get away with any price they ask for. Our embassies know them very well, BAIRA knows them, and agents know them and even the host governments know them. They are very much well-known figures. The host governments frequently raise this issue in bilateral discussions and they are willing to root out these people if supportive responses are there from our government. But nobody acts against them because of their clout. Unless they are whisked out from the host countries, our dream of reasonable migration costs may never be achieved. Our government should start hands-on dialogue with host governments to blacklist and deport them. With bio-metric technology, the host government can permanently bar them from re-entry. BAIRA should be empowered. As a trade body, BAIRA knows who is what and who does or is doing what. They can be entrusted to work as a watch-dog not only on its members, but also on our embassies, missions and its officials. On BAIRA's report against a recruiting agent, the ministry should deactivate, even if temporarily, such errant recruiters. To dispel any scope for partisan role by BAIRA or witch-hunting, a representative of the ministry (not below Deputy Secretary level) and official from BMET (not below Director level) should be a member of such a decision making committee. If this option it implemented, it will be effective. To bring local brokers under legal fold and accountability, a proposal is in circulation to give them legal status. This will create more problems than it can solve. Once they are empowered by legal status, their scope for collecting huge amount of money from aspirant recruits will increase and cases of vanishing brokers with people's money will be on the rise. Moreover, no recruiting agent will authorise a broker to collect money on his behalf due to the same apprehension. The target should be to defuse or make redundant the role of brokers by stages through different effective awareness programmes and not to promote their presence. By any count, the manpower export sector is the life-line of our economy and so it will remain at least for a decade or more. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders to work together to remove all incongruities in the supply chain. Manpower export is subject to forces beyond control of the recruiters alone. BAIRA should work with the government and other stakeholders, like media, NGOs, donors, foreign governments, overseas trade bodies, etc. to ensure a safe and sustainable manpower export regime. It must be a hands-on effort, not just perfunctory to tide over the present crises. The writer is a recruiting agent and he can be reached at e-mail: satrading8@yahoo.com