Bangladesh: Government moves to enter manpower business

The government itself will send manpower abroad from now on alongside private recruiting agencies, to reduce excessive  cost of labour migration. "The decision comes as previous efforts for reducing labour migration cost have been unsuccessful, " Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Zafar Ahmed Khan told The Daily Star.

The move is also expected to alleviate cost related plethora of harassment of overseas job seekers including the immense pressure on them for recovering investments, by creating a healthy competition between private and public agencies in the sector.

A jobseeker now spends on an average Tk 2 lakh for a job in Malaysia, and the Middle Eastern countries; and Tk 4 lakh for jobs in Singapore, although the government fixed rate is only Tk 84,000,  said migrant workers and government officials.

A study of a Malaysian migrant rights group, Tenaganita, says recruiting agencies had to spend Tk 1 lakh on an average to arrange a job for a Bangladeshi worker in Malaysia between 2006 and 2009. Currently the country has an embargo on Bangladeshi workers.

The unofficial statistics shows, private recruiting agencies are charging fees two to five times higher than the fees fixed by the government. According to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), the number of Bangladeshis gone abroad for jobs was 8.32 lakh in 2007, 8.75 lakh in 2008, and 4.75 lakh in 2009. In the first four months of this year the number was 1,34,787.

Migrant workers sent home around $10 billion annually in the last three years.

The government already instructed Bangladesh's labour councillors in its foreign missions to arrange work orders for job seekers who will migrate under government management, said Zafar Ahmed Khan. The workers will be trained and sent abroad at a minimum cost, he said adding, "We expect this will create a healthy competition in the sector." According to BMET, when Bangladesh first started sending workers abroad officially in 1976, the government was directly involved in the process.

But when the number of such migrants gradually increased, the government totally depended on private recruiting agencies since early 1980s, and limited its role to regulating the functions of the private agencies.

But now when the government has decided to send manpower abroad through its own arrangement again, the recruiting agencies have become its critic. Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) said BMET, as a regulatory body, should strongly enforce rules to check malpractices instead. If BMET gets involved in business, it will not be able to provide services to the agents, said Baira Secretary General Ali Haider Chowdhury. That will create more problems, he added.

Presently over 60 lakh Bangladeshis work abroad, and the majority of them are in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Malaysia, Singapore, and Libya.

The migration cost started rising in the early 1980s when recruiting agencies started competing among themselves for work orders and visas. Thus visa has become a document for sale, said a recruiting agent. Gradually, unauthorized brokers in Bangladesh and abroad started to dominate the business, he said adding that brokers abroad maintain contacts with employers for work orders in exchange for money, and they even offer workers at substandard wages.

Migrant rights activist, Syed Saiful Haque, said due to high migration cost but low wages, many migrants switch jobs, and overstay their visas to recover the money they spent. Some even engage in other illegal activities for extra earnings that tarnish the image of the country, and sometimes bring bans on Bangladeshi workers, he observed.

Kuwait stopped hiring Bangladeshi workers in 2006, citing malpractices in labour recruitment. Since early 2008, Saudi Arabia significantly reduced the number of Bangladeshi workers it hires. Malaysia froze hiring of Bangladeshi workers in March last year, citing economic meltdown. Local recruiters however said irregularities in the recruitment process led to the freeze. Such is the backdrop against which the Bangladesh government's latest decision came.

"Initially, we will send trained female domestic helps for only Tk 20,000," said BMET Director Nurul Islam. They now pay Tk 70,000 to Tk 1 lakh, he said adding, BMET will select job seekers involving district deputy commissioners, and upazila level public representatives. "Based on the pilot project's success, we will recruit male workers," he said. When people will know that it will cost only Tk 84,000 for male workers to get jobs abroad, private agencies will be forced to reduce their fees, he added.

Dhaka University based Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit Chair Dr Tasneem Siddiqui said, "The initiative might be good for the time being, but not for the long run." She suggested that the government should provide policy support for fair business practices, and sincere law enforcement.

Ali Haider Chowdhury of Baira said Bangladeshi brokers in destination countries, who actually hike up the migration cost, should be eliminated, but efforts for that have been absent so far. He said Bangladesh Overseas Employment Services Ltd (BOESL), he state-owned recruiting agent, is enough to send workers through government arrangements. It is, however, inefficient, he added.

Expatriates' Welfare Secretary Zafar Ahmed Khan acknowledged BOESL's inefficiency, and said, "We are trying to strengthen it."

A recruiting agent, Abdul Alim said BMET's latest effort might end up being counterproductive, because it is not efficient in dealing with the sector's multi-dimensional demands and problems.

Source: The Daily Star

Author: Porimol Parma