Govt okays proposal to send 1.5 million people to Malaysia

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) on sending 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia in three years has been given the go-ahead.

Monday's regular Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina approved the MoU, expected to be signed with Malaysia within a month, said Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam.

Since the B2B (Business-to-Business) and the G2G (Government-to-Government) methods did not yield ‘expected results’ earlier, this time the workers will be sent under a ‘G2G Plus’ system, he said after the meeting at the Secretariat.

“It is a major achievement of Bangladesh that Malaysia has listed us as a source country [from which to recruit manpower]. Now workers can be sent for the service, manufacture and construction sectors. Earlier it was limited to plantation only.”

If the deal is signed, the expenses for sending a worker will be Tk 34,000-37,000 and it is the employers who will have to bear that, according to him.

Around 600,000 Bangladeshis are currently working in Malaysia, one of the biggest manpower markets for Bangladesh.

After a long hiatus, Malaysia resumed hiring workers from Bangladesh in 2013 under the G2G system but only in the plantation sector, which did not receive much response.

Though the plan was to send 50,000 workers every six months, only 7,000 could be sent in the last three years, according to Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).

Now a new system is to be adopted and it has been styled G2G Plus. Privately-run manpower recruiting agencies will also be participating in it.

Malaysia will hire workers from the database prepared under the G2G initiative under the B2B management, according to officials of the overseas employment and expatriates’ welfare ministry.

A worker will be recruited for an initial period of three years, an extendable period.

Some guidelines were introduced to ensure transparency in the process, said Cabinet Secretary Alam.

The Malaysian government will review the employers’ capabilities and the facilities to be provided to the workers before initiating the recruitment process.

There will be no involvement of middlemen, he asserted.

The secretary did not say how much workers will be paid but told the press that the wages will be deposited directly to their bank accounts.

The employers have to be attested by the Malaysian High Commission in Dhaka, he added.