Recruiting agencies show reluctance to register manpower intermediaries

A government move for registration of intermediaries all but failed to make headway as most recruiting agencies were reluctant to submit data of their respective manpower agents.

According to officials of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), only 129 recruiting agencies had furnished lists of their agents or intermediaries to the bureau until the deadline on June 30 this year.

Currently, more than 1,400 licensed recruiting agencies are operational in the country, BMET data show.

But the manpower recruiters say the number of agencies would be over 1,800.

The government had earlier made the move for registration to keep in check the malpractices by a section of recruiters and intermediaries in this vital sector of foreign-exchange earning for Bangladesh, as they allegedly cheat and charge high from the overseas jobseekers.

As part of the plan, the government asked the manpower-recruiting agencies to provide lists of their respective intermediaries to the BMET, in order to get these agents officially registered under the agencies they operate and keep them on track.

In this regard, the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment had given a direction to the BMET that the recruitment agencies which would fail to submit the lists of their respective agents by the deadline would not get any services from the relevant departments in sending workers abroad.

The first deadline expired on March 31. As the recruiting agencies failed to submit their lists within the timeframe, the BMET extended the timeline until June 30.

Contacted, an official of the BMET, seeking anonymity, said a decision regarding the agencies' failure to provide the lists would come within a week or two as they are working on the issue.

"If need be, BMET will endorse the lists it had received from 129 manpower recruiters and send those to the relevant government departments and offices," he said.

The BMET will also seek directives from the expatriate-welfare ministry in this regard, he added.

Migration experts and activists say outbound workers were forced to pay "three times the officially-fixed migration costs due to an active nexus between middlemen and a section of recruiting agencies".

Besides, workers are "cheated" in many ways by the agents, said the experts.

Workers are forced to spend up to Tk 800,000 to go abroad with jobs - the costs are much higher than the official rates.

The government had earlier fixed the country-wise migration cost in 2017. The rates are Tk 2,62,270 for Singapore-bound workers, whereas Tk 160,000 for Malaysia, Tk 1,45,780 for Libya, Tk 97,780 for Bahrain, Tk 1,07,780 for the UAE, Tk 1,06,780 for Kuwait, Tk 1,00,780 for Oman, Tk 1,29, 540 for Iraq, Tk 1,00,780 for Qatar, Tk 1,02,780 for Jordan, Tk 1,20,080 for Egypt, Tk 1,66,640 for Russia, Tk 1,15,780 for the Maldives, Tk 1,20,780 for Brunei and Tk 1,17,780 for Lebanon.

Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme (OKUP) Chairman Shakirul Islam said if the intermediaries were not brought under legal framework, malpractices would not stop in this sector.

Mr Islam said they had long demanded that the government bring the middlemen or intermediaries under regulation.

"The decision to register the intermediaries is a good move by the government, but it failed as it could not work actively," he observed.

Ali Haider Chowdhury, former secretary-general of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), said recruiters should have submitted the agent lists to the BMET in order to facilitate fair practices in sending workers abroad.

"Those who want to send workers in a safe and orderly manner provided their lists," he observed.

The former leader of BAIRA also emphasised creating a database that can help drive away the middlemen from the scene.

Over 13 million Bangladeshi workers have gone abroad since 1976. Of them, 80 per cent went to Middle Eastern countries, according to official statistics.

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