Malaysia migration cost fixed at Tk1.54 lakh

The government has fixed the cost of migration to Malaysia at Tk1.54 lakh per worker and begun a state-run drive to send 10,000 workers there free of charge, starting with 112 recruits for DHL Supply Chain, officials said on Thursday.

Speaking to journalists at the Expatriates' Welfare Building in Dhaka, Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Ariful Haque Chowdhury said the ceiling applied under the official arrangement, although some quarters had proposed Tk2 lakh to Tk3 lakh.

The final list of approved medical centres will be published next week, he said.

"If the cost had remained within the prescribed limit, workers would not have had to face so much suffering," he said.

At a separate press conference at the Probashi Kallyan Bhaban, Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL) Managing Director Mohammad Rashedul Haque said the 10,000 workers would be sent entirely free of cost through the state-owned agency, subject to receipt of employers' demand letters.

Malaysia is Bangladesh's second-largest labour market, he said.

BOESL has so far received 568 demand letters. Recruitment will proceed in phases once the letters are attested by the Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia.

In the first phase, BOESL received a demand letter from DHL Supply Chain (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd on 2 November and published a recruitment notice online on 5 November. Some 4,029 applications were submitted between 6 and 8 November. An automated online system shortlisted 300 candidates on 8 November: 200 for operations assistant and 100 for technical skilled worker.

A nine-member Malaysian delegation has arrived in Dhaka to select 112 male workers through practical tests and interviews over four days, ending on 15 November.

Rashedul said BOESL would not interfere in the selection and the employer's choices would be final. The same automated system, with no manual intervention, would be used for future recruitment by other companies, he added.

The Malaysian employer will bear all government-prescribed migration expenses. "BOESL will not collect any migration cost or service charge from either the recruiting company or the workers for their employment in Malaysia. Zero means zero," Rashedul said.

He warned that exemplary legal action would be taken if anyone in his office, or any broker or middleman, were found to have taken money under the initiative.

Three people were recently arrested and sentenced by a mobile court after a raid at the Bangladesh-Korea Technical Training Centre over alleged irregularities, he said.

He urged applicants to avoid transactions with brokers or unauthorised individuals.

The initiative aims to ensure that financially disadvantaged but eligible people are not deprived of overseas employment for lack of money, he said. The government expects the free recruitment, together with the fixed cost, to ease the financial burden on workers.