[ALOCHONA] Manpower Export to Malaysia - Fleecing of workers rampant in both countries

Manpower Export to Malaysia

Fleecing of workers rampant in both countries

Porimol Palma

 

Unauthorized sub-agents in Bangladesh and outsourcing companies and their sub-agents in Malaysia have gobbled up an estimated amount of more than Tk 2,000 crore from about two lakh Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia, suggested a survey and statements of workers, sub-agents and businesses gathered by a Malaysian human rights organisation.

 

The Daily Star obtained a copy of the report.

 

Experts in the sector said a section of government officials of both the countries are also party to this unholy practice, which gave rise to a situation where a several thousand Bangladeshi workers were subject to abuse that led to an indefinite freeze by the Malaysian government on hiring workers from Bangladesh.

 

According to the decision of Malaysia and Bangladesh, each Bangladeshi worker is supposed to pay no more than Tk 84,000 to cover the costs including agents' service charges, government fees, fees for medical tests, and airfare, but they had to pay Tk 2 lakh to Tk 2.3 lakh each.

 

Malaysian human rights organisation, Tenaganita, in a statement signed by its Director Dr Irene Fernandez and issued in July this year, said apart from the official fees for visas, levies and attestations, outsourcing companies in Malaysia pay between 1,500 and 2,000 Malaysian Ringgit, equivalent to Tk 30,000 and Tk 40,000, in different forms to the Malaysian home ministry.

 

Tenaganita that prepared the statement on the basis of a survey on 150 jobless and stranded Bangladeshi workers and a study on 36 cases of the workers, said Malaysian outsourcing companies also spend between 1,000 and 2,000 Malaysian Ringgit, equivalent to Tk 20,000 and Tk 40,000, as 'lobbyist fee' to their sub-agents.

 

These companies sign deals with recruiting agencies in Bangladesh for hiring workers, as well as with employers in Malaysia for supplying the workers. The outsourcing companies, as per the Malaysian rules, are responsible for paying the salaries and ensuring other facilities for the workers upon receiving the money from the employers.

 

Tenaganita report is partly substantiated by a September 6, 2007 letter from Bangladesh expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry to the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), saying, "There are allegations that Bangladeshi recruiting agencies are paying levy to the Malaysian government in advance."

 

As per the Malaysian labour laws, Bangladeshi workers are supposed to pay the levy once they are employed in a Malaysian company, the letter said adding, "The levy is being paid twice as the recruiting agencies are paying it in advance during collecting job demand letters, while the employers are also cutting levy monthly from the workers' wages."

 

After Malaysia's decision on October 3 this year to freeze hiring of Bangladeshi workers, its Home Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said the presence of too many agents from Bangladesh in Malaysia, who used Malaysians as sub-agents, and the huge amount of money involved, are not healthy signs, it is not good for the country.

 

Back at home, unauthorised but widely spread-out middlemen eat up Tk 30,000 to Tk 40,000 per worker, as they woo the job seekers from villages to go to Malaysia and hand them over to licensed recruiting agencies.

 

During an investigation by an official of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training, Hamidul Haque, a manpower broker in Asrafpur of Meherpur, said he paid Tk 1.95 lakh to a recruiting agency for sending a worker to Malaysia.

 

That agency however handed over the worker to another recruiting agency, as the latter had a job demand letter which the former did not have, for processing the documents of the worker for sending him to a South East Asian country.

 

The unfortunate worker recently returned from Malaysia following unemployment and abuses by an outsourcing company there, and said he had paid Tk 2.3 lakh to the agency that had sent him there.

 

Curbing of such cuts of around Tk 30,000 to Tk 40,000 by the middlemen in Bangladesh, and Tk 50,000 to Tk 70,000 by the sub-agents or the Malaysian home ministry could have saved more than Tk 1 lakh for each Bangladeshi worker, said a recruiting agent of Bangladesh requesting anonymity.

 

An intelligence report at the end of last year said BAIRA President MAH Salim, who is also a former BNP lawmaker now in detention, monopolised the manpower business with Malaysia and charged an extra Tk 40,000 from each worker.

 

When contacted by The Daily Star in January this year for a separate report, MAH Salim said he had to pay 'lobbyist fees' and bribe officials in Malaysia.

 

On an occasion in mid-November Salim also said an erstwhile Bangladeshi minister had also demanded Tk 25 crore from him.

 

Salim's allegations against the said minister came up when the expatriates' welfare ministry in October last year asked the commerce ministry to suspend the executive committee of BAIRA following its alleged extortion of the workers. The committee is now suspended.

 

Malaysian human rights organisation, Tenganita, in its latest statement on October 4, 2007 said, "The outsourcing companies of Malaysia are very much linked with patronage politics in Malaysia where their goal is to make fast money."

 

On the other hand, an official of the Bangladesh expatriates' welfare ministry told this correspondent that the Bangladesh delegation, which recently visited Malaysia to probe the workers' issues, recommended changing a few officials of the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur.

 

There are allegations that the officials in the high commission were not careful enough in scrutinizing before attesting the job demand letters that resulted in unemployment of many workers, as they were hired to work in Malaysia based on fake demand letters.

 

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