90 workers head to Malaysia

 

Bangladeshi workers in queue at Shahjalal International Airport before they leave for Malaysia    

2000 are expected to go each week 

Rabiul Islam, Dhaka Tribune 

Ninety Bangladeshi workers traveled to Malaysia Tuesday under a government-to-government arrangement, which will see them joining work in the country’s plantation sector for a migration cost of around Tk30,000.

A Malaysian Airlines flight (MH-103) carrying the workers left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 1.10pm, Md. Zahidul Islam, assistant director at the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), told the Dhaka Tribune over phone Tuesday.

Eighty-three more workers are scheduled to go to Malaysia on Wednesday, the official added.

“We hope a total of 2,000 workers would go to Malaysia every week from now on,” expatriates’ welfare secretary Zafar Ahmed Khan told this correspondent at his office on Tuesday.

The secretary said, “We have held meetings with Malaysia’s Human Resource Minister and Interior Minister last week, and the labour migration to Malaysia would be expedited under G-to-G system”.

Malaysia has also initiated a move to use the same method to recruit from Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Zafar mentioned.

Earlier Tuesday morning, BMET organised an inaugural ceremony for the Malaysia-bound workers at Haji Camp in the capital’s Ashkona.

Speaking as the chief guest, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain urged the recruiting agencies not to create confusion among jobs seekers.

He said a section of private recruiting agencies at home and abroad was claiming that the government would not be able to send workers.

The minister said labour migration to Malaysia has resumed and it would continue. Migration cost would not exceed two months’ wages of a worker, he added.

Mosharraf also called upon expat workers not to flee their workplaces, as they would become illegal and face punishment.

Earlier, 198 workers went to Malaysia under the same arrangement.

Meanwhile, a lottery has selected around 30,000 workers to be sent to Malaysia.

The government has also created a database of around 1.5 million workers from across the country.