Posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
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Nearly 100 recruiting agencies, in connivance with some corrupt government officials of both Malaysia and Bangladesh, are engaged in forgery of passports and other documents and the unholy competition of securing job demand letters from Malaysia, manpower businesses said.
Such acts were partly responsible for Malaysian government’s imposition of ban on employment of Bangladeshi workers for almost a decade, they said.
Besides, the malpractice increased the migration cost for the Bangladeshi workers going to Malaysia
Recent blacklisting of 16 such Bangladeshi recruiting agencies and detaining of two Bangladeshis who were engaged in manpower business under the cover of herbal medicine business in Kuala Lumpur bear testimony to the fact.
A report published in the August 11 issue of Malaysian daily ‘The Star’ said Malaysian authorities blacklisted the agencies for bringing in 103 workers with false documents in the first week of this month.
The blacklisted agencies are Paradise International, Akeya Trade International, Akia Trading International, The Super Eastern Ltd, Surma Overseas Ltd., PMP International Company Ltd, Sakib International, Golden View Ltd, Al Itteshal Air Services Ltd, Al Khalesh Ltd, Mat International, ATT International, ABC Avenue, Master Express, Sukma International and Fantasy International.
Five Malaysian agents recruiting workers from Bangladesh are also on the run following Malaysia’s Immigration Department’s discovery that they had hired the 103 Bangladeshi workers with false documents.
Under an amnesty programme two years ago, illegal workers including those from Bangladesh were given permission to return to Malaysia if they had proper work permits.
Some 11,000 illegal Bangladeshis are said to have taken up the amnesty offer.
Datuk Ishak, director general of immigration in Malaysia, told the Malaysian daily that he witnessed workers carrying false documents at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Each worker had paid between Malaysian Ringgit 12,000 and 18,000 (Tk 2.5 lakh to 3.6 lakh) to go to Malaysia, Datuk said.
Manpower businesses fear that many more agencies would be caught if the Malaysian authorities conduct a probe into how the 11,000 workers went to Malaysia after opportunity was offered under the amnesty.
Nearly 90 per cent of the 11,000 workers went to Malaysia using the names of the genuine workers who did not go to Malaysia after they had been sent to Bangladesh under general amnesty as their date of working in Malaysia expired, said a recruiting agent in Dhaka.
The immigration officials both in Bangladesh and Malaysia were involved in this illegal process, he said, adding that the workers had to go through fingerprint tests with biometrics machines and it could not be forged unless the officials concerned had a hand.
Recruiting agencies are afraid that the newly opened manpower export to Malaysia would be seriously hampered if the government and Baira (Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies) fail to take strong action against the blacklisted agencies.
Under the present guidelines of importing manpower, Malaysia restricted engagement of any representatives of Malaysian employers or Bangladeshi recruiting agencies in Malaysia as engagement of representatives ‘creates anomalies in the business and add to the workers’ cost of going’.
Under the new system, Malaysian government will directly send the workers’ job demand letters to Baira, which will distribute those to all its members.
But Baira members are yet to agree on how the distribution will be made.
A powerful quarter allegedly engaged in forgery and unholy competition through lobbying the Malaysian employers and practising bribery have been claiming that agencies would collect job demand letters from the employers as per their capacity.
The manpower business experts have expressed the fear that the unholy competition of lobbying the employers and collecting demand letters will continue if the agencies are entitled to collect the letters directly from the employers.
Unless the agencies engaged in such practices are punished and an equal distribution system is introduced, newly opened business with Malaysia will be seriously hampered, said a business expert.