“THESE comments are nothing new from (Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M.) Saravanan as the media may be reporting wrongly as a new position.”
Such is the immediate reaction by migrant workers and labour rights activist Andy Hall in regards to Saravanan’s media statement yesterday (June 19) that the HR Ministry shall accredit a further 250 Bangladeshi recruitment firms “to work within the structure” of the 25 recruitment firms selected by the Malaysian authorities.
“In simple terms, each of the 25 companies will be allocated 10 companies to incubate and be part of recruitment ecosystem especially in meeting the standards and guidelines set by the HR Ministry,” the Tapah MP added.
Commenting further on the current 25 labour recruiters’ impasse between Dhaka and Putrajaya, Hall said “the talk has always been 25 agents from the Malaysia side and 250 subagents from Bangladesh” (but no limits on number of agencies involved on Malaysian side) to undertake the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia.
According to Saravanan, the 25 recruitment firms have been selected from a list of 1,520 firms provided by the Manpower Ministry of Bangladesh, after which the HR Ministry picked 25 companies.
“Prior to this exercise, there were only 10 companies involved in the recruitment of workers from Bangladesh,” he claimed in a media statement yesterday (June 19).
“Moreover, the monopolistic nature of the 10 companies led to many workers who were lured by the promise of decent work and were subsequently left stranded by agencies from both countries.”
Considering the state of influx given Dhaka is seemingly rejecting Malaysia’s policy of 25 recruitment firms, Hall pointed out that it is inevitable for both countries to be in “total agreement” on the said policy.
“(They have to) rationally and objectively/fairly justify any possible selection of only a limited number of manpower agencies (agents or sub-agents, whatever anyone call them or 25 or 250 however anyone talks about) to carry out these recruitment tasks between Bangladesh and Malaysia,” he opined.
“Or surely the governments (Malaysia and Bangladesh) cannot limit the number of agencies involved due to transparency or corruption concerns.”
At the end of the day, Hall reiterated that genuine transparency requires a public open tender process to select the most able, ethical and financially sustainable manpower agencies (or sub-agents) for these recruitment tasks.
“A public, clear and open eligibility criteria for possible selection, a transparent objective tender process where the best agencies are selected and get the work. Anything less is unacceptable, lacking in transparency and raises serious concerns of the possibility for systemic corruption,” he insisted.
“And finally, ‘sub-agents’ are seemingly illegal in Bangladesh, forbidden under the Bangladeshi recruitment regulations, hence I’m not sure how a system of 250 sub-agents can suddenly be created in Bangladesh for this recruitment.”
To make matters worse, Bangladesh’s Welfare Association for the Rights of Bangladeshi Emigrants (WARBE) Development Foundation’s chairman Syed Saiful Haque has claimed that “a Malaysian mafia-like racket” is behind the push to create a 25-agency syndicate of Bangladeshi recruiters. – June 20, 2022
