KL suspends system of hiring Bangladeshis, Dhaka not yet communicated

Expatriates' welfare and overseas employment minister Nurul Islam on Saturday said the Malaysian government may cancel the recruitment system.

He, however, expressed confidence that such decision would not hamper the process of sending workers to the Southeast Asian country, reports UNB.

Malaysia’s human resources minister M Kulasegaran has said the government had suspended the system currently in place for the recruitment of migrant workers from Bangladesh, according to Malaysian daily The Star.

He said the whole process was "a total mess" that resulted in the migrant workers paying exorbitant amounts of money to several middlemen in both Bangladesh and Malaysia, also adding that the ten companies, which are part of the syndicate involved in the recruitment process, have also been suspended.

In the light of this, Nurul Islam said the Malaysian government has not officially informed Dhaka about it till now, but according to their workers' demand, there is no alternative to taking Bangladeshi workers.

The minister added that there is no chance of the process to be suspended, nor has there been any request to re-evaluate the recruitment agreement.

He said efforts to discuss about the matter by forming a joint bilateral working technical committee are already underway.

Joint secretary general at Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) Shameem Ahmed Chowdhury Noman told UNB that recruitment for workers to be sent to Malaysia will go on as usual.

Noman, owner of one of the ten agencies suspended, said the Malaysian government cannot take any one-sided decision and has to consult with the Bangladesh government before suspending such an initiative.

"The current agreement has been ratified by the Parliaments of both of the countries," he said, "we can assume that the number of workers sent will be lower now, but it will not be cancelled altogether."

Noman added that the new government may take new initiatives, but that will be subject to approval by the joint working technical committee.

After sending workers to Malaysia from Bangladesh was suspended for a long time, it was reopened late 2016 through a syndicate of ten designated recruitment agencies, who have so far sent 1.6 lakh workers in a government-to-government (G2G) process.