Failure of 31,000 workers’ going to Malaysia, State Minister orders probe

Who was responsible for the failure of 31,000 workers of not been able to go to Malaysia in time? The Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment will investigate the matter.

Besides, legal measures will be taken against those who were responsible for creating crisis in sending workers to Malaysia.

State Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Shafiqur Rahman Chowdhury stated it to reporters after visiting and attending an opinion-sharing meeting at Government Alia Madrasa in Sylhet on Saturday.

He also held the negligence of recruiting agencies responsible for the failure of 31,000 workers of not been able to go to Malaysia in time.

Shafiqur Rahman Chowdhury said, “We held meetings with Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) to send workers as per the approved quota of the Malaysian government. We sought the list of workers from them repeatedly. After holding a meeting on May 15 last, I told them to make a final list. I asked them to give a final list on how many of the workers had received visas and how many of them were yet to receive visas. But they didn’t do that and give us any list. At the last time, they informed us that workers were readied but flights were not available. Then I contacted with the Civil Aviation minister, Biman’s MD and Civil Aviation Authority. They arranged 22 to 23 flights. Beyond these, there were also scheduled flights.”

The state minister said, “In spite of giving so many flights, up to 4,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers could not fly to Malaysia. We will form inquiry committee to probe who was responsible behind this suffering. Those who will be found responsible in the inquiry, they will be brought to justice. We will take severe action against those if the victims [who paid money but could not fly] make complains to us.”

After issuance of visa, a workers requires to collect clearance certificate from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) to go to Malaysia. However, the ministry concerned has not yet provided any statistics about how many workers could not fly to Malaysia after taking clearance certificates from the BMET.

The BMET’s statistics show that the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment approved 5,23,834 workers till May 21 to go to Malaysia. It was also decided that the BMET would not issue any clearance certificate further after May 21. However, the BMET issued clearance certificates until Thursday evening. A total of 1,112 workers were given clearance certificates from May 21 to May 30.

Meanwhile, BAIRA said on Saturday that up to 5,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers could not fly to Malaysia due to a lack of air tickets, despite having the necessary documents.

BAIRA president Md Abul Bashar said this figure might be 4,000 to 5,000, but they would have to wait till Sunday to know the exact figure.

It may be mentioned that Malaysia is the second largest manpower market of Bangladesh. There are some 15 lakh Bangladeshi expatriate workers in that country. Last year, 3,51,683 workers went there. Till April this year, 44,727 workers went there. Malaysia opened it labour market in 2022 — after four years. In march last, the Malaysian government announced that no new foreign workers would be allowed to enter the country after May 31. So, the Malaysian labour market closed again from Saturday (June 1).

Meanwhile, there was huge crowd at Kuala Lumpur Airport in Malaysia on Friday (May 31). Bangladeshi workers had to wait in queues for hours to enter the country crossing the immigration.