Labour MOU: Bangladesh minister says M'sia silent on further meetings

 

Nearly four months have passed since Malaysia and Bangladesh signed an agreement to reopen the labour market, but there has been no further progress on discussions to resolve objections over the number of recruitment agencies permitted to send their workers here.

Bangladesh Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmed told Malaysiakini that bilateral discussions after the signing of the memorandum of understanding have been at a standstill since January.

"As of now, it is as it was in January," he said when met in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Asked whether Bangladesh had requested to hold a Joint Working Group meeting comprising officials from both governments, Imran said: "We have asked for it. We have not received a response. Until we receive a response, we don't know."

Imran said he was in Malaysia to attend the Defence Services Asia 2022 exhibition.

While Imran did not reveal further details, Malaysiakini understands that the matters up for discussion include Bangladesh's rejection of Malaysia's request that only 25 Bangladesh Recruitment Agencies (BRAs) and 250 sub-agents be allowed to send their workers to Malaysia.

Bangladeshi workers at a padi field in Tanjung Karang, Selangor

Putrajaya's request and Dhaka's response were recorded in correspondence between Human Resources Minister M Saravanan and Imran.

The letters previously sighted by Malaysiakini came after the two ministers (above) signed a five-year Malaysia-Bangladesh labour recruitment agreement on Dec 19 last year, lifting a freeze imposed since Sept 1, 2018, under the then Pakatan Harapan government.

Transparent and fair

Imran, in his letter of response to Saravanan, dated Jan 18, urged Malaysia to keep the BRAs selection process transparent and fair, rejecting any form of monopoly or syndication.

Imran at that time said so in response to concerns raised by the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira), which requested an equal opportunity for all of its nearly 1,600 members to be allowed to send workers to Malaysia.

Then, on March 10, Saravanan was reported to have said that Putrajaya has received 200,000 applications for Bangladeshi foreign workers through the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS), and once approved, they will be allowed to work across all sectors. - Mkini