KL Recruitment Right
Minister, Baira at loggerheads
Expatriates’ Welfare Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain yesterday turned down the private recruiting agencies’ demand for allowing them to recruit workers for jobs in Malaysia.
“I told Baira leaders that we shall initially send workers to Malaysia at government level. Gradually, when the system is streamlined, we will leave the task for the agencies,” he said after a meeting with the newly elected executive committee of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira).
A Malaysian delegation will come to Dhaka on June 5 to finalise the procedures for recruitment of workers from Bangladesh, the minister told journalists at his office.
Earlier, there were a lot of problems due to high cost of sending workers to Malaysia when private agencies were involved in the process, he mentioned. And malpractices led to a ban on recruitment of Bangladeshi workers by Malaysia in early 2009.
The government would not allow recurrence of malpractices when Malaysia resumes recruitment shortly, Mosharraf said.
Talking to journalists, Baira leaders however claimed that the minister agreed to allow private agencies to recruit workers for jobs in Malaysia.
Baira Secretary General Ali Haider Chowdhury said recruiting agencies are the “only stakeholder under the ministry” and they would remain the ones to recruit workers for jobs abroad.
He said the minister asked Baira to submit to his ministry a written proposal on workers’ migration cost for Malaysia and other countries.
Asked about Baira leaders’ claim following their meeting with him, Mosharraf appeared surprised. “Oh, is it? Then, you better ask them categorically. I do not know why they are speaking like that,” he said
About the ministers’ announcement on recruitment of workers at government level, Ali Haider said, “We do not know in what context the minister made this statement.”
Baira President Shahjalal Majumder said they would submit as proposal on workers’ migration cost by Monday.
At present, there are around four lakh Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia and 2.7 lakh of them are in the process of getting regularised.
-With The Daily Star input
