Remittances by non-resident Bangladeshis (NRB) through official channels hit $ 6.4 billion in 2007 as per the World Bank, and the caretaker government has shown keen interest in increasing that.

Right after the recent NRB conference in Dhaka interested NRBs held follow-up meetings to try to capitalise on the momentum generated. The march continues. The Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) organised a roundtable discussion on February 5 on increasing remittances from abroad.

A high-powered GOB team is expected to visit Saudi Arabia to explore the problems of Bangladeshi workers. The Daily Star published related back-to-back articles by two NRBs, Dewan Sadek Afzal (”Promoting NRB Investment” in the February 5 issue), and Halimur Rashid Khan (”Increasing Remittance from Non-Resident Bangladeshis” in the February 6 issue).

We hope that the policy prescriptions that follow from the BEI roundtable, the findings and recommendations that the GOB team brings back, and the prescriptions by others to increase NRB remittances will receive due consideration, careful evaluation, and coordinated, committed and resolute implementation by the GOB.

Visit to KSA
Dignitaries going abroad often end up meeting, and discussing with, those who can gain access to them — those in positions of influence, those connected to embassy officials, and those who are leaders of socio-cultural groups and political parties. It is important to get the views and opinions of such people. It is also important to get the viewpoints of a cross-section of expatriate Bangladeshis.

It will be naïve to think that the Bangladesh Embassy officials in KSA do not know about the plight of Bangladeshi white-collar workers in the Kingdom — about the stories of gross underpayment in brazen violation of contracts, mistreatment and abuse by employers, inability to get leave to visit Bangladesh when contractually due, and so on.

This has been going on for decades, and in other countries. But, as with many other problems of the country, no remedial actions have been taken. The voiceless, helpless, and hapless poor workers of Bangladesh toiling in various countries and earning foreign exchange for Bangladesh continue to suffer. Most of them manage to get a job abroad after paying a fortune to manpower agencies — often by selling their small plots of land, or by borrowing from relatives — only to find that they receive a salary much less than what their contract stipulated.

This story has been told again and again and again! But has anything been done to rectify this recurring state of affairs? I wonder if any manpower agency responsible for this has been taken to task. I wonder if the government has intervened to regulate the exorbitant amounts, which are way above the costs incurred, that helpless job-seekers have to pay to manpower agencies. We want the goose to lay golden eggs. But what have we done for the goose?

BEI roundtable
I hope that the BEI will submit concrete, feasible and practicable proposals to relevant government ministries on strategies for increasing remittances. That should not be the end of it. Government functionaries are busy people, and they can easily lose sight of the proposals if there is no follow-up.

The organisers of the NRB Conference took pains to put all presented papers in the form of a book. A further helpful step would have been to extract major findings and recommendations from the papers and the discussions, group them into related categories, and forward them to respective ministries as actionable items. This step would have needed follow-up. But who could do that?

To ensure something like that, the recommendation for an NRB Secretariat by Dewan Sadek Afzal merits consideration. In his timely, well-reasoned and articulate article he has also called for developing mechanism to establish planned neighbourhoods.

NRB Secretariat
As I envision, an NRB Secretariat can help the GOB and NRBs in a number of ways. It can carry out functions like the following:

* Identify problems, challenges, prospects and opportunities faced by NRBs.

* Help the government in designing appropriate policies and strategies to transform idle manpower into a veritable asset.

* Survey and monitor manpower needs (by type and quantity) of manpower-deficient countries, and report to government and private vocational training institutions geared towards producing skilled and semi-skilled manpower for foreign markets.

* Investigate unfair actions and practices of manpower exporting and importing agencies, and recommend to GOB appropriate actions against the perpetrators.

* Create databases of NRB experts in various fields for possible short-term use of their services by the GOB, universities, and local and international agencies operating in Bangladesh.

* Store and disseminate information on the technology, methods and processes that can be transferred to Bangladesh, with information on relevant experts who can act as transfer agents.

* Gather information on attractive investment sectors/projects in Bangladesh for sharing investment ideas with potential NRB investors.

* Identify and promote less expensive, faster and safer ways through which NRBs can remit money to Bangladesh.

* Advise the GOB on ways to clean the morass and web that investors from abroad have to go through for investing in Bangladesh.

* Advise potential NRB investors about GOB approval processes.

* Identify and promote investment vehicles that will motivate NRBs to invest in Bangladesh.

* Advise GOB on the modalities and approaches for establishing planned neighbourhoods around district towns to facilitate purchases of lands by NRBs in an orderly and efficient manner.

After analysing the needs of various categories of NRBs, the above list can be fine-tuned.

Establishing planned neighbourhoods
A significant part of NRB savings go towards meeting real estate needs. Dewan Sadek Afzal’s article puts forward a compelling plan of action whereby this need of NRBs can be met in a planned and orderly manner. It will create planned neighbourhoods as well as increase remittances.

But the government has to simplify the process through which it allots plots, so that it is fast, fair and transparent. Why should it take a few years to allot plots after the application and initial deposit have been accepted?

Parcels of land developed near various district towns should be earmarked for allotment only to NRBs, so that influential politicians and persons cannot be the beneficiaries of such parcels. If the process of allotment is a lottery, it should be strictly that, and not be subject to political caprice.

In the event that an applicant is not allotted a plot, his/her money should be speedily refunded after following a simplified procedure. If it is protracted period, sufferers lose in terms of purchasing power, and also have to forgo the opportunity to earn on that amount over the period delayed. Who will compensate them for that? I am disregarding the fact that they may have to spend some money to get back the deposited money.

This brings me to the all-important point; we cannot expect to increase remittances in a vacuum. Some of the factors that have a bearing on remittances are:

* Creating a stable and conducive socio-economic and political climate that can help create a functioning economy.

* Strengthening the institutions that establish rule of law, strengthen oversight, weed out corruption and create public confidence in the police and the courts.

* Simplifying bureaucratic entanglements and regulations.

* Easing infrastructure blockages (power shortages, transportation bottlenecks, port and customs delays).

* Enhancing technology and telecommunications facilities for greater integration with world markets, etc.

These factors would contribute toward creating a favourable investment climate to attract not only NRBs but also MNCs.

A factor that is not necessarily related to creating a favourable investment climate, but can, nevertheless, significantly increase remittances is exporting ever increasing numbers of skilled manpower (train them first so they can earn more, save more, and send more). However, it is well known that the presence of an educated and skilled workforce in a country helps to attract foreign direct investment.

If one creates the fastest, safest, and cheapest remittance mechanism, but the factors mentioned above are absent in Bangladesh, remittance will increase to some extent, but not dramatically. It will also increase as more people find jobs abroad, but not dramatically. The super-rich NRBs will keep out (as will most MNCs), and they are the large players. They will prefer to invest in safe havens.

Dr. Shaikh Abdul Hamid is an NRB residing in Boston, USA, for about 22 years. He is Professor of finance/economics. He is also a Research Associate of National Defence College, Dhaka, and a Governor of SERVE Foundation — a not-for-profit organisation registered in Bangladesh and in the USA — and dedicated to nation building.