An auspicious macro-economic note was struck in the second half of the last calendar year! During July-December, 2017, our expatriate workers sent in $6.93 billion as compared with $6.17 billion in the corresponding period of the previous calendar year.
Bangladesh Bank was elated claiming that vigorous drive by overseas bank branches and service providing agencies under the central bank's monitoring eye was having an effect after all - by way of drawing remitters out of the clutch of the unofficial channel operatives to the official ones.
Experts though laid an emphasis on depreciation in the value of Taka vis-à-vis the US Dollar as the factor behind the upturn in inward remittances. With each dollar fetching 4-5 takas more for the benefactors and the beneficiaries alike, the lucre of the open market rate differential that the Hundi operators cashed in on might have been diluted. With sensitization against money laundering and risk financing sinking hopefully in the minds of the average remitters, reaching the expatriate's door-step first and efficient handling of monetary transmission - we are assuming - at least a crack in the system can be repaired. But it shouldn't be band-aided or merely plastered to come off.
So ,when in this column we had duly greeted the upswing in the remittance inflows in December, we preferred to err on the side of caution, i.e., being objective in our comments. We suggested that in-depth analysis or research be made into the upturn in remittances with an eye to determining as to how much of it was caused by dollar appreciating against Taka and how much has been due to stepped-up efficiency on the part of the banks and agencies charged with garnering foreign exchange earnings of expatriate Bangladeshis.
All of this should leave a compelling message for target-oriented solutions. More so, as we deal with the broader issue of not merely a year closing on a negative growth in remittances but also because the same saw one million Bangladeshi workers getting jobs overseas, the highest in the country's history in a single year.
The government, our missions abroad, the bureau of overseas employment, Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), the training institutes, manpower importing countries all will have to work in concert under a multi-disciplinary policy paradigm. They need to address the concerns and issues relating to safety, costs, hazards including trafficking and one-sided terms of migration and employment - each from its respective jurisdiction but in an overarching coordinated manner. The migration rights campaigners while extolling the achievements of Bangladesh as a manpower exporting country added that the government is yet to 'ensure decent and safe migration for the workers.'
Saudi Arabia recruited 54 per cent of the overall 33 per cent increase in manpower export posted by Bangladesh in the outgoing year. But over 90 per cent went to that country with individual or so-called free visa. Such visa holders are struggling to find jobs in a market that has shrunk in the oil-rich country (with a price free fall), leaving the dishonest recruiters a field day to hire them for their own benefits. In the process, they are being bandied about.
The concerns expressed by two organizations, viz., WARBE Development Foundation and Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) need a reiteration for the people in charge to be nudged into corrective action. Syed Saiful Haque, chairman,WARBE claimed that 'every year a large amount of money is being laundered in the name of migration cost.'
This finds resonance in a report by TIB last March: "A sum of TK 52.34 billion was laundered from Bangladesh in 2016 to seven receiving countries, especially Middle East in the form of buying visas for sending workers abroad."
While such weighty allegations deserve to be looked into by an appropriate authority mandated by the pairs of manpower sending and hosting countries, the plain truth that we confront with, is this: "If a worker comes back home empty-handed, it will create more burden on his family and society."
A business that deals with human beings can be inherently clean where a human person cannot simply be pawn in a hideous chessboard. We greeted the news of Bangladeshi expatriate workers having sent in $6.93 billion during July-December, 2017.
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