THE first batch of Bangladeshi workers who left for Malaysia last night (Aug 8) under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Dhaka and Putrajaya on Dec 19 have touched down at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang at about 5am today.

Bangladeshi news portal The Business Standard cited the country’s Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) director-general Md Shahidul Alam as saying that a total of 53 workers boarded an AirAsia flight for Kuala Lumpur at 11.40pm through the Catharsis International recruiting agency.

At least another 5,000 workers are in the pipeline to leave for Malaysia through 16 other recruiting agencies, according to Shahidul Alam.

However, recruiters who are protesting against the syndication of 25 agencies in the migration process to Malaysia claimed that the outgoing workers were made to pay 3.5 to 4 lakh taka (350,000 taka = RM16,446) although Dhaka has set the recruitment cost per worker at 78,990 taka (RM3,712).

“Earlier we claimed that a syndicated system of recruitment would increase migration costs as was the case in the past. This is exactly what has happened this time,” Tipu Sultan who is president of manpower recruiting agency Oikko Parishad told The Business Standard.

“Our Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment has assigned the responsibility of recruitment agency selection to the Malaysian Human Resources Ministry instead of Malaysian employers,” noted Tipu. “But in the case of 13 other source countries, only legitimate recruitment agencies hire workers for Malaysia.”

The Business Standard further cited aspiring migrant worker to Malaysia Farhad Hossain (pseudo name) as claiming that he has been asked to pay 3.80 lakh taka (380,000 taka = RM17,852) in migration costs.

“We have already paid 50,000 taka (RM2,350) and submitted his passport to a middleman. We will have to pay the remaining amount after getting the necessary approval from the destination country,” Farhad’s mother told the business portal.

According to The Business Standard, local recruiters have been demanding the punishment and cancellation of the 25 agencies involved in the syndication.

Dhaka and Putrajaya signed the MOU on labour recruitment last year after a pause of more than three years following allegations of a ten-member syndicate that manipulated recruitment during 2017-2018.

Following the inking of the MOU, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan said 25 Bangladeshi agents and 250 subagents would be selected for the recruitment of workers. This sparked protests from other recruitment agencies in Bangladesh. – Aug 9, 2022