People have been defrauded and have returned home without a penny. They now have to spend much less through the government-to-government arrangement which ensures their jobs abroad, he said.
This government has been sending workers to 157 countries though the previous governments had sent workers to 75 countries.
The minister further said the present government has so far sent 21, 49,466 people with jobs to different countries during January 2009-March 2013 period
A total of 10,50,827 people had been sent abroad with jobs during the regime of the BNP-Jamaat alliance.
The minister spoke about the changes while talking to daily sun Tuesday on issues regarding the manpower export to different countries across the globe.
He said, “When I took over the charge of this ministry, the migration cost was Tk 70,000 for the Middle East countries and Tk 84,000 for Malaysia.”
“But a worker earlier went to Malaysia at a cost of Tk 4 lakh and to an Arab state at a cost of Tk 3 lakh through recruiting agencies.”
“I asked many workers about their migration costs, but no body dared to speak the truth in fear of recruiting agencies lest they lose their jobs abroad. But I found the anomalies and malpractice in the recruiting agencies.”
The minister also said many poor workers have come home losing their jobs abroad.
“I cancelled the licenses of 65 recruiting agencies for issuing fake visas and fined them Tk 20 for the shake of our workers.”
The ministry’s officials and even the Prime Minister had given directives to stop the malpractice of the recruiting agencies to ease off sufferings of migrant workers.
Then I took some initiatives to send workers abroad for jobs under the state-to-state protocol.
“I started pragmatic initiatives in sending workers abroad. Bangladesh government signed MoU with Malaysian which assured us of taking 30,000 workers gradually under the protocol without middlemen’s interference.”
For the first time in Bangladesh, those interested to do jobs in Malaysia were asked to do their registrations on online at the Union Information Centres.
The same process was adopted by the government for female workers of Bangladesh.
The minister firmly said, “I declared the migration cost will be least for the poor workers and I am happy I finally had been able to maintain it.”
“We have trained 10,000 job-seekers for Malaysia. Around 200 people have already left for Malaysia at a cost of Tk 33,550 each.”
He further said more female workers will go to Hong Kong, Oman, Mauritius, Singapore and Arab sates by spending Tk 20,000 to Tk 30,000 each.
“Total migration cost of each worker will be between Tk 20,000 to 50,000 for jobs in any country of the world. And I will be able to send all registered 14 lakh people to different countries as many new job markets will open within the next two months,” the minister assured.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and other gulf countries have already shown interest in taking workers from Bangladesh under the protocol.
News Link: Mosharraf makes radical change in manpower export system
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