One of the driving forces of the country’s economy is the foreign employment sector.
According to data from the Bureau of Manpower Training and Employment (BMET), about 15 million people have gone abroad for employment in the last two decades.
Malaysia is the largest and traditional labour market for Bangladesh’s manpower exports, after Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
Although Bangladesh’s manpower exports to Middle Eastern countries often face various crises and obstacles, the export of manpower to Malaysia has never stopped.
The changing political-economic reality has once increased the dependence on the Malaysian labour market.
Due to corruption, lack of transparency and syndicated profiteering related to recruitment, the Malaysian government has imposed additional attention and restrictions on the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers, allowing them to work in G-to-G contracts at lower costs initiatives.
But due to the necessary government initiatives and the lack of cooperation from private recruiting agencies, the manpower export targets as per those agreements were not achieved.
However, the stagnation in manpower exports to Malaysia due to unexpected complications is having an adverse impact on the country’s economy.
A report published in this newspaper on Thursday day revealed that although manpower exports to Malaysia have been virtually halted for the past eight months, the interim government has shown little initiative to resolve the crisis.
For this, the government is facing mounting criticism for its diplomatic and administrative failure in reopening the crucial Malaysian labour market.
The unnecessary cost overruns, lack of transparency in the recruitment process, and stagnation in the export of labour to Malaysia are due to lack of coordination between the relevant departments.
Taking this opportunity, the rate of recruitment of manpower from various countries including Indonesia and Nepal to Malaysia is increasing.
The government’s failure to resolve the long-standing unwanted complications in recruiting manpower in a friendly country like Malaysia is surprising.
It is to be noted that in May last year, Malaysia suspended the recruitment of workers from 15 source countries, but this year it resumed recruitment.
Bangladesh lags behind all other countries in the registration process for workers than Nepal, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan.
The reality of lagging behind in the newly started manpower registration after a long hiatus is vastly disappointing.
The country’s economy, banking sector and financial sector are already facing a disaster due to the rampant looting and laundering of hundreds of billions of dollars during the fallen Hasina’s rule.
The government now must take effective initiatives to exploit the potential of manpower export to Malaysia.
