Manpower export from Bangladesh
September 12, 2008
must congratulate Helal Ahmed Chowdhury, Managing Director of Pubali Bank, for coming up with a very innovative scheme for funding the prospective job seekers abroad. A substantial number of the expatriate wage earners are victims of the unscrupulous manpower agents who extract substantial sums from job seekers for employment abroad. Pubali Bank has initiated an expatriate lending project whereby the bank will advance money to the prospective job seekers who will repay the loan from their remittances.
I do have some personal experience regarding manpower export. It just so happens that when Bangladesh commenced exporting manpower and introduced the manpower license system my license number was number one. That is to say that I was the first to get hold of a manpower export license.
I was under the impression that we would be paid by the company that recruited workers from Bangladesh. I soon find out that it was the other way round. I had to pay money to the agents of the company-recruiting workers. Naturally, this had to be borne by the aspirant of a foreign job.
Since I could not accept the situation I surrendered my license. Some years later, when I started contracting work in the Emirates, I got a fresh license and I took at least 500 skilled workers and engineers without any charge, including payment of their airfare.
I happened to be to the promoter director of Al-Baraka Bank with the Dallah Group of Saudi Arabia as the foreign partner. Every year, at least four board meetings used to be held in Jeddah and, over the years, I attended at least 20 such meetings.
I found the Dallah Group to be a very enlightened business conglomerate working in at least a dozen countries. They were a larges employer and did not charge any money from the recruits. From the Bangladesh side, we have Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL), which is supposed to act as the recruiting agent in Bangladesh.
I am not familiar with the proportion of workers that go abroad through the BOESL, but I would imagine it would be a small fraction only. Also, BOESL simply does not have the funding and the facilities needed to contact all prospective employers abroad and to search for avenues of employment in new countries.
When we were working in Abu Dhabi, the Labour Counsellor in the Bangladesh Embassy would frequently request us for transport if he wished to visit Dubai. In other words, the embassy did not have cars or funds for the Labour Counsellor to visit prospective employers and, if possible, take them out for dinner.
This is probably the situation in every Bangladesh Embassy abroad. Therefore, this calls for the involvement of some agencies that would promote employment of Bangladesh workers, particularly skilled ones, in the large number of prospective employer countries. In this matter the government may give all facilities to BOESL, and maybe also involve NGOs like Brac and Grameen Bank to promote employment of Bangladesh workers abroad.
The whole question of manpower export has been analysed by the Royal Danish Embassy, Dhaka, in their report Vision 2015, Bangladesh as a leading manpower exporter January 2008, and by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute in their study September 2007 on Policy and Public Benefit Interventions, to help Bangladesh achieve annual migrant remittances of $ 30 billion by 2015, and also in a report by India Institute of Management Calcutta September 2007.
From these reports it can be seen that the possibilities of manpower export are enormous. For example, there is a worldwide shortage of qualified nurses, and Bangladesh has got practically millions of unemployed women. Other skilled workers like carpenters, plumbers, auto-mechanics, air-conditioning technicians, and so the list goes on. Also qualified technical workers like IT engineers, computer experts etc.
We have to acknowledge that Bangladesh is practically surviving on the remittances of Bangladesh workers. The total remittance in the year 2006-2007 was $ 5979 million, and the remittance for the period July-December 2007 was $ 3447 million. In other words, for the year 2007-2008 the remittance is likely to exceed $ 7 billion. Unfortunately, although the government and the country are reaping huge benefits from wage earners’ remittances, not enough is being done to administer the whole business of manpower export, which is really the goose that is laying the golden egg.
On January 10, 2008, I was travelling to Karachi by PIA. In the 30 seats of the Business Class there were only 5 genuine business class passengers and the rest were workers. There were 2 captains sitting behind me, and when I enquired if the other passengers had paid the full business class fare the captains replied in the affirmative.
I talked to the person sitting beside me and asked him about the purpose of his journey. He said that he was going to work as a labourer in Abu Dhabi and would be paid only 650 Dirhams per month. I recalled that in 1990 we were paying our workers a minimum salary of 1250 Dirhams.
On further enquiry I found out that the person next to me had neither any schooling nor vocational training. He had paid Tk 2.5 lacs for the job. Two things are revealed in this disclosure — the worker was not skilled and it would take him at least 5 years to recover his investment. The nexus of agents in Bangladesh and abroad would be the main beneficiaries.
Unless we break this nexus our skilled workers, who might command better salaries but cannot pay the premium, are deprived from the jobs and, secondly, a considerable amount of foreign exchange is paid through the backdoor to the agents abroad. All this money would have come to Bangladesh as workers’ remittances.
If one examines the whole manpower business in depth one would find numerous underhanded dealings, both by our recruiting agents and the agents abroad. False passports, false visas, false recruitments proliferate on our side. And overseas, if a company has 100 vacancies the foreign agents may take out permission for 1000 vacancies, and our workers who land up in the foreign country are left stranded without a job. We read frequently about these happenings in the newspapers.
Presently, almost all job seekers are hostage to the unscrupulous recruiting agents in Bangladesh and also to their counterparts in the country of employment. Actually, most large companies and government agencies abroad do not charge any money from the workers they employ.
The lower employees of the overseas companies tie up with some local agents and charge money for any recruitment. The entire business of manpower export requires review and professional management as Bangladesh can benefit much more than we are at present. The reports mentioned above should be studied and the measures suggested implemented.
Manpower brokers in big hundi racket buy job demands
September 12, 2008
Such illegal transactions spawn enormous malpractices forcing a large part of low-skilled workers into penury. But the government measures fail miserably in negotiating with labourer receiving countries to check frauds.
In the ’80s, the employers used to bear the expenditure to hire workers from the country. But later a syndicate of visa traders enticed the employers to take cheaply paid workers from them in exchange of commission, creating dozens of ways to exploit the workers.
The issues have surfaced following recent turmoil in the Middle East and Malaysia where Bangladeshi workers were unpaid, underpaid, abused and deported or were forced to return home.
Iftekhar assured of Kuwait’s bid to resolve workers’ problems
September 12, 2008
Foreign Affairs Adviser Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury Friday said the Kuwaiti authorities have assured him of every effort to resolve the problems faced by the Bangladeshi workers in Kuwait, reports UNB.
Iftekhar, also in charge of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, returned home early Friday after a two-day visit to Kuwait.
The Foreign Adviser mentioned that the Kuwaiti authorities announced an amnesty until October 15 for illegal workers to depart Kuwait without any legal impediments.
“To facilitate the Mission’s work in this regard, and also in response to public demand, we have decided to increase manpower at the (Bangladesh) Embassy,” he said.
“We’ve also engaged a Kuwaiti lawyer to protect our workers’ interests. I had a meeting with him as well,” Dr. Iftekhar Chowdhury said.
During the visit, the Adviser held discussions with Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mohamed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, Labour Minister Bader Fahed Ali Al-Duwailah and other senior officials.
He also held two rounds of discussion with the members of the Bangladeshi community.
Talking to the media in the city Friday, the Foreign Adviser said the Kuwait authorities have assured him that a minimum wage of KD 40 is being fixed for the workers and their living conditions would be improved.
“The question of compensation to the deported labourers would be speedily addressed,” he said, adding: “Kuwait will also take stern action against the Kuwaiti companies who have exploited the Bangladeshis.”
Iftekhar informed that the Kuwaiti Parliament would meet in an emergency session on September 10 to discuss the crisis with regard to foreign workers, including Asians and Bangladeshis. “In that respect the visit was well-timed,” he said.
He said the Kuwaiti authorities see Bangladesh as “a great friend who stood by them at the hour of their greatest need during the Iraqi occupation.
“I also appreciated their support to our economic development. I urged them to take skilled manpower from Bangladesh in the future.
They also agreed to consider supporting some new projects in Bangladesh covering the Padma Bridge, Chittagong Port, and the Special Economic Zone in Sylhet.”
What about a regulatory body for manpower sector?
August 27, 2008
BANGLADESHI workers in the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries are increasingly becoming vulnerable to deception, ill-treatment and torture. Deception by recruiting agencies at home or employers abroad has been a recurring event in case of Bangladeshi workers. But the recent police actions against a good number of Bangladeshi workers and their deportation by the government of Kuwait and return of several hundred workers from Malaysia in batches being deceived either by the manpower agents at home or their employers, are among instances that have attracted wider attention. So, it is quite natural for the enlightened section of the society to be seriously concerned about the wellbeing of the Bangladeshi workers who toil hard in distant lands remaining away from their near and dear ones and remit billions of dollars back home annually.
The workers’ remittance, which stood at $6.0 billion in 2007, is actually the single largest source of foreign exchange earning. Though the earning of foreign exchange-nearly $8.0 billion in the fiscal 2007-08, from the readymade garments (RMG) export is shown as the largest, the actual earning from it becomes much lower if one takes into consideration the value addition content. While taking note of the contribution of the expatriate workers to the national economy, more precisely, to the balance of payments (BoP), speakers, who included, among others, an economist, a retired high army official and the head of the association of the recruiting agencies, at a discussion meeting held early this week in Dhaka made scathing criticism of the ministry of expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment for its failure to protect the interests of the migrant workers. The indifference of the officials of the Bangladesh missions to the plight of the migrant workers was also noted with grave concern. One speaker even suggested for the formation of a regulatory commission to oversee the manpower export issues.
Unfortunately, the government seems happy enough counting the dollars being remitted by the migrant workers. It has never been serious to address the problems the migrants face before and after their departure. At least, three major issues need to be addressed with utmost urgency. Firstly, there should be all-out efforts to give exemplary punishment to the unscrupulous manpower agents who are primarily responsible for all the sufferings of the migrant workers. Secondly, people seeking to go abroad with jobs should be encouraged to attend vocational training programmes and become skilled and semi-skilled workers. This, if ensured, could help secure more jobs abroad and higher remittance earning. Finally, it should be ensured that the fund being mobilized by the government in the name of welfare of overseas Bangladeshi workers is spent on their short- and long-term welfare.
In case of distress situation following deportation, financial help must be extended to the returnees, at least, for a few months. A part of the financial gains coming from long-term investments being made by the expatriates’ welfare fund is needed to be spent on stipends or scholarships for the children studying in schools and colleges and on the healthcare facilities for their families. Given the importance of their remittance money in the national economy, the expatriate workers deserve better deal from the government. There is no denying that the ministry concerned and the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) have utterly failed to protect the interest of the migrant workers. So, the suggestion to have a sort of regulatory body for the sector deserves to be given due consideration.
Dallah Group to recruit 5,000 unskilled workers
August 27, 2008
Dallah Group, one of the largest manpower recruiting companies of Saudi Arabia, will appoint 5,000 unskilled workers from Bangladesh soon, an adviser said Thursday.
This is the first time since March 24 that a Saudi company has offered to import Bangladeshi manpower.
Saudi Arabia on March 24 officially banned the intake of unskilled workers from Bangladesh.
“Dallah Group wants to recruit 5,000 unskilled Bangladeshi workers soon,” foreign affairs adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told reporters.
The Group’s president Alwa Kamel called on the adviser in his office.
“The government is trying addresses some of the problems some workers are allegedly facing,” Iftekhar said.
The Saudi company has so far recruited over 15,000 Bangladeshis to its concerns.
Manpower export abroad
August 27, 2008
It is very sad to note that some Bangladeshi agencies tarnished country’s image regarding manpower export to Malaysia. Punitive steps must be taken against these agencies through proper investigation so none dares to indulge in such anti-state acts.
They caused a great loss for the nation and dimmed all prospects of our hard-working workers going there and earning precious foreign exchange for our country. Regrettably, the probe team found a section of officials in the Bangladesh High Commission and members of Bangladesh Workers’ Welfare Association in Kuala Lumpur engaged in these activities. On the other hand, the reported reluctance of Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training, and Passport Department to share their database with the immigration police has led to failures in checking illegal manpower export and passport forgeries.
Immigration police in early 2003 proposed that Bureau of Manpower Export and Training should give them access to its database to check unauthorized migration, illegal manpower export and forgery of passports and visas. Similar proposal was made to the Passport Department in 2005, so that the three government agencies could share data and work hand-in-hand to curb malpractices in manpower trade that often make sad news on sufferings of jobseekers abroad and even deaths in risky ways to coveted European destinations. Forged passports and visas can be misused in many ways which sometimes may also become a national threat.
Besides checking the unauthorized activities, scores of people will be benefited and immigration passage at airport will be relieved of additional pressures if the data sharing is ensured.
Bangladesh offers to provide more manpower to Saudi Arabia
July 4, 2008
President Prof Iajuddin Ahmed Thursday said Bangladesh was ready to provide more skilled and unskilled manpower to Saudi Arabia for fulfilling the demand of the labour market of the oil-rich country, reports UNB.
He also said Saudi Arabia could import pharmaceutical products and medicines and explore the possibility of joint-venture investment in boosting Bangladesh’s readymade garment sector that would also benefit the Saudi investors. Read more
Task force identifies 747 corrupt recruiting firms
June 14, 2008
Extorting money from workers, issuing fake visa, cheating govt of tax
The Task Force and other law enforcing agencies identified 747 corrupt manpower-recruiting agencies and cancelled the licences of 24 such firms recently. These manpower-recruiting agencies out of 757 in the country,(The New Nation)
violating Government rules and regulations, were extorting excess money from the overseas job seekers and cheating the Government on taxes.
Most of these agencies were collecting Tk 3.50 lakh to Tk 4 lakh per worker in the name of various office expenses under the very nose of the authorities concerned. The Government had fixed Tk 84,000 per labour for a work visa especially in the Middle East.
Moreover, these agencies were charging Tk 15 to Tk 20 lakh per person for sending them to the US, Europe and Australia with work visa. For a visit visa they were demanding Tk 10 to Tk 12 lakh per person.
Every day an average of 800 to 1,000 Bangladeshi workers are going to the following countries, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Yemen and Korea with work visa.
The Task Force source said, the agencies get some 50 offer letters for work visa from a particular embassy but they make 100 to 150 photocopies and sell those to unsuspecting job seekers by changing the names and addresses and pocket the extra money.
They were also involved in various other illegal activities such as sending people with fake visas, passport transfer, hundi and human trafficking.
The identified corrupt manpower-recruiting agencies run their business across the country through a large number of associates and their representatives or dalals.
These dalals buy passports at a throw away price from the returnees and hand those over to the corrupt recruiting agencies for onward sale. The recruiting agencies also buy snatched passports from the hijackers and sell those to the job seekers for a hefty amount.
These Bangladeshi youths go to foreign countries after being assured by the recruitment agencies but they face various problems abroad, as they are not provided with jobs as per contact. Many of them return home as they are charged with carrying fake visas and passports.
Due to the irregularities of the recruiting agencies many people are passing inhuman life abroad and around 3,000 workers from different foreign countries returned home during the last six months, according to sources.
Recently, the Government had signed an agreement with the government of UAE, which will help expand the labour market even further.
The Task Force found only 10 manpower recruiting agencies following the Government rules and regulations on sending workers abroad.
Foreign Adviser Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said the export of Bangladeshi manpower abroad is continuing and this year, so far 314,000 workers have been cleared for employment abroad. Out of this 225,000 have already departed for their destination.
“The remittances are also increasing. Already the amount has exceeded US $ 3 billion in the first four months. Again at this rate we could look forward to getting US $ 10 billion by the year end,” Iftekhar Chowdhury added.
Manpower brokers to be brought under legal framework
April 21, 2008
The government is mulling bringing manpower brokers under a legal framework and devise a mechanism for recruiting agencies to realise service charges from oversees job seekers based on their wages to reduce cost of going abroad for employment.
Brokers in manpower exporting and importing countries gobble up a substantial share of the money that the job seekers spend for overseas employment. The evil practice eventually raises the cost of migration, which in many cases the workers cannot retrieve from their wages during the job period.
This happens mainly in cases of unskilled workers, who constitute 50 to 60 percent of the migrant workforce, worsening their socio-economic condition.
“There are instructions from the higher authorities to devise an effective mechanism so that overseas job seekers are not forced to make undue payments,” said a high official of the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry.
Previous experience showed that the government’s fixation of cost for sending workers abroad did not work. For instance, cost of sending workers to Malaysia was fixed at Tk 84,000 each but each of the around four lakh workers spent Tk 2 lakh to Tk 2.5 lakh.
“So, we asked Baira (Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies) representatives to give their opinions on how recruiting agencies can reduce cost of labour migration,” the official told this correspondent.
Against this backdrop, experts have come up with ideas like recruiting agencies’ authorising middlemen and making them accountable in cases of cheating of job seekers, and even opening BMET (Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training) offices at upazila level.
The ministry official said one idea to cut high migration cost is that the recruiting agencies will realise service charges from aspirant migrants on the basis of their wages. If the agencies can arrange jobs with high wages, they will get high amounts.
“Such a mechanism may encourage recruiting agencies to find out better paid jobs,” he said.
The government has already formed a committee for legal reforms in immigration sector, and will take decisions based on opinions of Baira representatives so that these are complied with properly, the official mentioned.
Former executive committee member of Baira Abdul Alim said if service charges based on wages are introduced, recruiting agencies will advertise in newspapers on overseas jobs specifying required qualifications, wages and service charges. Since job seekers will then get all the information easily, middlemen will have no scope to tempt and cheat them.
Alim also said the government should allow recruiting agencies to set up offices and invest money to search for jobs in manpower importing countries. Most of the agencies now take money abroad through hundi to search for job demands.
Agency offices abroad can even help curb middlemen’s activities in the manpower receiving countries, Alim thought.
Baira’s former secretary general Ghulam Mustafa emphasised opening BMET offices in upazilas. Whenever recruiting agencies get information about job demands, they will submit those to the BMET for immediate passing on to all its offices across the country, he said.
“Under this system, overseas jobseekers will go to their nearest BMET offices, instead of going to middlemen, to know about the jobs and will then contact recruiting agency offices,” Mustafa said. This will greatly reduce middlemen’s dominance and cheating of job seekers, he felt.
Authorising the middlemen to operate as representatives of recruiting agencies may be helpful to some extent but it may also be seriously abused, he said. To abolish middlemen system in labour receiving countries, Bangladesh should sign bilateral agreements with those countries, he suggested.
Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) Coordinator Prof Dr CR Abrar however said the earlier rules that recruiting agencies should publish job demands in newspapers did not work. Rather, middlemen continued to exploit jobseekers in various ways.
He said a better option to be relieved of the middlemen is hiring jobseekers from the BMET database, which should be properly maintained.
“Now, the unauthorised middlemen are out of control. Once they are recognised and provided identity cards, they can be caught in cases of fraudulent practices,” Dr Abrar said.
The government should also allow recruiting agencies to invest money abroad for market research, he suggested.
Saudis ban Bangladeshi workers in two sectors
April 4, 2008
Riyadh: Saudi Labour Minister Dr Gazi Al Gosaibi has clarified that the decision to stop hiring of Bangladeshi workers was in the housing and agricultural sectors.
“This decision was taken in view of the fact that the quota fixed for Bangladeshi workers in the kingdom was over,” Gosaibi said.
“Their hiring would be restricted to medical and engineering fields. However, there will be an exception for the jobs in the maintenance and cleaning sectors with the condition that their percentage in all the sectors should not exceed 20 per cent,” he told reporters here on Sunday. Read more