Govt to slash cost of migration to S'pore

The government will send workers to Singapore, the third largest destination for Bangladeshi jobseekers, through private recruiting agencies but under strict supervision to curb the high migration cost, the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment minister said yesterday.

"Currently, a jobseeker has to spend a minimum of Tk 7-8 lakh for obtaining an employment visa for Singapore. It is an extreme level of exploitation of a foreign jobseeker," Khandker Mosharraf Hossain told reporters at the capital's Probashi Kalyan Bhaban.

The minister, who has visited Singapore recently, said the government would ensure that no jobseeker had spent more than Tk 1 lakh for migration to the Southeast Asian country.

"The private channel for sending workers has gradually turned into a system of exploiting jobseekers. So, we have decided that the recruitment system must be strictly supervised," he said.

An official at the ministry said there would be no manpower export to Singapore under government to government (G2G) arrangements.

Singapore is the lone destination country which receives workers, both skilled and semi-skilled, only after training them, at eight technical training centres in Bangladesh.

Mosharraf said the government would operate the eight centres and ensure a transparent system to send workers to Singapore.

After Oman and Qatar, which respectively hosts around 5 lakh and 2 lakh Bangladeshi workers, Singapore is the largest destination for Bangladeshi jobseekers.

Last year, 54,0750 Bangladeshis migrated to the Southeast Asian economic tiger, while 11,702 migrated till March this year, raising the total number of expatriate Bangladeshi workers there to over 1.5 lakh now, according to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training.

Bangladesh is currently sending workers to Malaysia under the G2G system at lower costs, but it has apparently failed to boost the country's manpower export. Since 2013, only 10,000 have found jobs in Malaysia, where several lakh jobseekers are waiting in the queue.

On the back of this, private recruiting agencies' association Baira requested the government to be careful about "controlling" the Singapore market.

"We always appreciate the minister's concern for reducing migration costs. But we request him to be cautious so that our manpower market in Singapore does not face new hurdles," said Mohammad Abul Bashar, president of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies Association (Baira).

Earlier, a delegation from Jordan discussed with the ministry officials the work opportunities and rights issues of female Bangladeshis in the Middle-East country.

Around 40,000 Bangladeshi women are currently working as domestic helps and garment workers in Jordan, the minister said.

The Jordanian authorities will send a team of trainers to Dhaka to provide skills training to the female jobseekers by next one or two months, he added.

Replying to a query about the Saudi Arabian government's decision to hire female Bangladeshi workers, Mosharraf said the recruitment procedure was going on, but he expressed frustration at the poor response of the female jobseekers.

Only 2,932 women have signed up for jobs in the Kingdom in the last one month till yesterday, the minister said, while there are opportunities for thousands of them.