Malaysian Home Minister arrives to talk manpower issues

Published : Sunday, 5 February, 2023 at 12:00 AM Count : 630

On a visit of around 24 hours, Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail on Saturday arrived in Dhaka to discuss the issues of manpower hiring from Bangladesh at a minimum cost.

The country's High Commissioner of Malaysia to Dhaka Haznah Md Hashim welcomed the Home Minister at Dhaka's Hazrat Shahjalal Inter-national Airport at Saturday noon.

According to the sources of the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment, the Malaysian minister had a meeting with the officials of Sena Kalyan Overseas Employment Services Limited at Saturday evening.

Later, he joined a dinner party offered by Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmed at a city hotel where he was staying.

According to the programme schedule, Minister Ismail will hold separate meeting with Expatriate Welfare Minister Imran Ahmed and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Sunday. After the meeting with the Home Minister, he will leave Dhaka for Malaysia.

However, the Bangladeshi recruiting agencies are also trying to meet the minister at a suitable time before leaving Dhaka to discuss on the issue of allowing all valid recruiting agencies to send migrants to the country instead of only 100 agencies, the country allows now.

In the meetings with the minister, the issue would also be discussed along with reducing the migration cost, ensuring facilities to the migrants working in the country and legalizing the migrants staying there illegally. The issue of amending the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in December 19, 2021 would also be discussed to facilitate all agencies for sending migrants there, sources claimed.

The sources said that the Malaysian system of hiring Bangladeshi migrants is interrupting the entire migrant sending process. In the meeting, the issue of changing the system would be tabled.

While talking to this correspondent over phone, Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) Secretary General Shamim Ahmed Chowdhury Noman told that they want to allow all valid recruiting agencies to send migrants there instead of restricted agencies.

"Same time, we also want that they follow the same procedure of hiring migrants from all 14 migrants sending countries including Bangladesh," he added.

According to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), though the country received some 2.50 lakh demand letters from Malaysia, they could send around 50,000 migrants after opening the market in last year.