Raheed Ejaz
Manpower recruiting agents Sunday submitted a 28-point proposal to the government that includes increasing the migration cost from Tk 84,000 to Tk 1,40,000 to stop cheating as well as maintaining growth in this sector.
A delegation of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agents met labour and employment and expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment minister Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain and handed over the proposal to him.
Mosharraf, however, said a series of discussions involving all the stakeholders might have to be held before re-fixing the migration cost.
The BAIRA also proposed setting up an expatriate bank to utilise the Wage Earners’ Welfare Fund, to provide easy loans to overseas jobseekers, and also to utilise their remittances after they returned home.
Recruiting agents also apprehended that the global economic meltdown would cast a negative impact on Bangladesh’s manpower export. They suggested adopting a coordinated approach for maintaining the manpower export boom.
Dwelling on the issue of exploitation of overseas jobseekers by recruiting agents, Mosharraf said as reflected in media reports, there seemed to be some irregularities in the process.
He said whatever the problem was it would be handled from the perspective of human sufferings.
‘If we have frequent discussions, we can establish transparency in the process and ensure better service for our overseas jobseekers,’ he added.
The minister said, ‘We will monitor and tighten the process to check whether the recruiting agents are taking the migration cost set by the government.’
About the reported scam of Wage Earners’ Welfare Fund, the minister said the Anti-Corruption Commission had started investigation of the case and he was hopeful of getting the money.
Asked whether Bangladesh missions abroad fail to cater to the needs and address the grievances of expatriate Bangladeshis, the minister said, ‘we have decided to set up welfare committees comprising overseas Bangladeshis to address their grievances in various countries. Initially we will set up such committees in 10 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea.’
BAIRA president Ghulam Mustafa said, ‘Through advertisement in newspapers we have asked people to be conscious about the cheating in the recruiting process. We have asked them [aspirant overseas jobseekers] not to make any deal with any unauthorised recruiting agents.’
He said their internal inquiry revealed that the middlemen grab the money from the jobseekers.
About their proposal for increasing the migration cost, he said, ‘Due to global inflation and the rise of other related things, we have requested the government to raise the migration cost. If the migration cost is re-fixed, we will be able to help the government to monitor the transparency of the migration process and ensure secure jobs for our people.’
Courtesy: newagebd.com
