Further delays to M'sia-Bangladesh labour recruitment MOU

Bilateral discussions on new terms for recruitment of Bangladeshi migrant workers here appears to be hit with further delays.

Sources told Malaysiakini that the 4th Malaysia-Bangladesh Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting scheduled to be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, today and yesterday has been postponed.

"The meeting did not take place... no specific date has been set (for the next meeting)," said a source from the Human Resources Ministry.

The source also confirmed that Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran, who was scheduled to lead the ministry's delegation to Dhaka, is instead on a working trip to New Delhi, India.

According to the ministry's official Facebook page, on Saturday Kulasegaran had delivered a statement at a conference in New Delhi that promoted Socso's use of IR 4.0 technology for medical rehabilitation.

In September, an earlier JWG meeting scheduled to be held in Dhaka was also postponed.

The 3rd JWG meeting took place in Putrajaya on Nov 6 and it was agreed by both parties that matters discussed would be the source of guidance for officials from Malaysia and Bangladesh to finalise draft protocols to amend an existing agreement signed in 2016.

Matters discussed include the implementation of a mechanism that involved the participation of both governments, as well as recruitment agencies from both countries.

The statement was jointly signed by Kulasegaran (above, right) and Imran Ahmad (above, left), Bangladesh's Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister.

It was announced at the time that the 4th meeting would be held in Dhaka on Nov 24 and Nov 25, leading up to an expected signing ceremony at the end of this month.

On Sept 1 last year, Putrajaya suspended the Foreign Worker Application System (Sppa) for Bangladeshi workers, which only allowed the recruitment process to be carried out by 10 selected agencies.

The previous system saw Bangladeshi workers apparently having to fork out up to RM20,000 in processing fee per person to agents to facilitate work permit approvals and other arrangements to work in Malaysia. - Mkini