Some points to ponder

The government's move to set a ceiling on the costs of migration cost to Singapore is a welcome development. Escalating recruitment costs are a big factor causing distress to Bangladeshi workers in Singapore. Enforcement will, however, be the key to effectiveness, and designing the regulations properly to pre-empt loopholes can also make a big difference.
There are five areas to watch out for. Firstly, the related rules should not only cover all licensed recruitment agents, but also any individual or any corporate entity that acts like an agent. Currently, many Bangladeshis going to Singapore get their jobs through informal channels, such as former workmates, friends of friends or distant relatives. A big amount of money changes hands nonetheless, but these informal channels will escape the related law unless rigorous monitoring and severe penalties for unlicensed recruitment are put in place.
Secondly, "training cost" can be a vague term. Recruiters can claim that the training was not job-specific but part of general skills development that would help a foreign-bound worker in his career, regardless of job. By arguing like this the recruiters could unbundle the training cost from the recruitment cost and thus the total amount of money required may overshoot the ceiling. They may also demand payments on different occasions under what may appear to be separate contracts. This is a loophole that continues to cause problems in the Philippines and Indonesia. To prevent it, it should be clearly written into the rules or policy that any training cost that is necessary for the immediate job, even if it is helpful for future jobs, should be considered part of the total recruitment cost, even if paid at a separate point of time.
Furthermore, workers leaving for Singapore for their second or third jobs may not need training again, yet recruiters may still include a training cost in the total amount simply because the ceiling allows them to.
Thirdly, the rules should require detailed itemised receipts to be given to the prospective expatriates. It would be better if the related law requires the recruiter to reimburse, say, 50 per cent of the total amount, should the job ends within six months, and 25 per cent if within 12 months. This is to prevent recruiters from overcoming the maximum ceiling by signing workers in for jobs of short duration (without informing workers of that). It also prevents scams - promising jobs that do not actually exist but the worker does not find out until he leaves Bangladesh. In this case the workers should get 100 per cent reimbursement of the money. It also should also be a criminal offence.
Fourthly, the rules should forbid recruiters from collecting monies supposedly owed to other parties, for example, another job agent in Singapore. This too is another ruse that other governments trying to control recruitment fees have had to deal with. Recruiters claim to be collecting for fees on behalf of other parties, and so exclude these amounts from the legislated ceiling.
Fifthly, the Singapore law forbids employers from receiving any payments from employees when extending jobs to them. Yet, it is reported that one component of the proposed ceiling would be "company fee of Tk 8,000 to Tk 15,000." It is not clear whether the "company" refers to an employer. This component should be deleted.
The total amount proposed as the ceiling-Tk 260,000-is still very high. The recruitment cost set for going to Malaysia is Tk 40,000. That for going to South Korea is around US$900 (Tk 72,000). No doubt these fees do not seem to include much by way of training cost. Neither do some jobs in Singapore require training.
For those that do, it might be better to set a separate ceiling for training fees, taking into account the training centres' real costs and let the ceiling for recruitment cost be something similar to that for going to Malaysia or South Korea.
The writer is treasurer of the Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), a non-profit in Singapore that provides assistance to migrant workers of all nationalities
working there.