Shawdesh Desk:

The governments of Bangladesh and Malaysia are finalising necessary procedures to begin the process of recruiting Bangladeshi workers for Malaysia.

The Malaysian government has already opened up the central server for approving demand letters for its agriculture sector from January 28 and for all other sectors from February 15 following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two countries on December 19 last year.

Under the MoU, the Malaysian government has decided to digitalise the total employment process with an established online system to process biometric medical system, passport, work permit, visa, security clearance, etc centrally.

Malaysian Employment Facilitation Center (MEFC) would have its branch office in Dhaka to carry out the functions of the Foreign Workers Centralized Management System (FWCMS) and the whole system of the local office would be managed by BESTINET.

Besides, the number of agencies would be limited to 25 and they will accept 250 more associate agencies. The Malaysian government has selected 34 medical centres for conducting medical examinations which are approved and integrated into the central server and linked with all stakeholders and service providers.

Migration sector insiders have said the Malaysian government has completed almost all necessary arrangements to accept Bangladeshi workers and their intention has been found sincere and honest.

Mentioning that the Malaysian government has signed similar MoUs with some other neighbouring countries like Nepal and Indonesia, they also urged the Bangladesh government to respond positively.

According to the sources at the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, the Bangladesh government is exchanging letters with the Malaysian government and trying hard to finalise everything regarding the much-awaited migration process.

It is to be mentioned that Malaysia suspended hiring Bangladeshi workers in September 2018 over widespread allegations of malpractice in the recruitment process and charging higher costs from labourers by recruitment agencies through middlemen.

But back then all the allegations were proved incorrect. After a thorough investigation, then Malaysian minister of human resources M Kulasegaran informed the Malaysian parliament that the complaints brought against Bangladesh Recruiting Agencies (BRAs) and BESTINET were baseless.

Consequently, the same government that banned the G-to-G PLUS programme, finally cleared BESTINET and others involved in the system from all kinds of allegations.

Migration experts then said that a number of Bangladeshi agencies were always against the good initiatives of the government and they put their highest efforts to jeopardise the process.

They even campaigned at all levels including media and governments, according to experts.

Since the beginning of the migration of Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia in 1977, there were disputes over the payment of salary, documentation, renewal of visa and work permits and sending remittance.

The two countries tried to resolve the problems a number of times. In 2009, when these problems turned worse, the door of Malaysia for Bangladeshi workers was closed.

In order to address the issues, the two countries signed a new agreement on G-to-G basis for migrant workers’ employment in Malaysia in 2011 and under the purview of that agreement some 8,500 Bangladesh nationals were sent on employment visas until 2016.

The government could reduce migration costs to some extent but failed to increase employment opportunities.

Besides, human trafficking to Malaysia increased many folds, illegal immigration through sea route, migration on student visa replaced the legal migration process and mass graves of Bangladeshi nationals were discovered.

Following negotiations to resolve the difficulties of G-to-G system, two countries signed a new MOU introducing G-to-G PLUS system.

The Malaysian government digitalised the system with a holistic approach engaging BESTINET and gave them the responsibility of processing and coordinating with the central database and implementing digitalised recruitment process.

Soon after the signing of the agreement, a total of 278,000 Bangladeshis migrated to Malaysia with proper employment visas within two years. The Malaysian government also setup the MEFC office in Dhaka to coordinate among the agencies, employees and Malaysian high commission in Dhaka.

The whole process was carried out smoothly and there were hardly any complaints in the G-to-G PLUS system from any side, experts said.

Malaysian government selected the 10 BRAs. Illegal human trafficking to Malaysia was stopped came to an end, the cost of migration was reduced significantly and Bangladesh was officially declared as a source country for the first time in Malaysia, they added.

The whole procedure was transparent and no fraudulent practice was found due to the introduction of the digitalised system.

But the impressive initiatives came to a halt for irrational and negative attitudes of a certain number of agencies.

Migration experts called the government to begin the process of sending workers to Malaysia as soon as possible and monitor everything properly so that no vested quarter can create hurdles before the good initiatives of the two countries.