Visit of Foreign Minister and Expatriate Affairs Minister to Malaysia and a New Manpower Export Policy for Bangladesh

The importance of the foreign remittance of Bangladeshi expatriates in Bangladesh’s economy has been very well established. Last year, the country earned over US$ 9.5 billion as foreign exchange from foreign remittance. Still it is just half of the over-all remittance business and the other half is lost to the illegal Hundi business. Given the fact that the worldwide demand for migrant labour is expected to increase not decrease, the current world economic meltdown notwithstanding, the potentials of foreign remittance is enormous.

Unfortunately, past governments have just given lip service to the importance of our expatriate community. Their contribution has been so far acknowledged in speeches and writings but very little in actual services to this extremely important community. One is saddened to read in newspapers on a regular basis on how our expatriates suffer inhuman condition abroad and also frequently fall prey to unscrupulous manpower agents at home and abroad.

There is no dearth of government’s regulatory agencies for the welfare of the expatriates. We have a Ministry  of Expatriate Affairs and a number of other government and private establishments for welfare of our expatriates. Still they are falling victims to swindling on a regular basis. Given the importance of the remittance business, it is time to re-think for a paradigm shift in the way we are handling our expatriate community and the remittance business. It is heartening to see that the two Ministers central to this shift have taken up the issue with the seriousness it deserves. Both the Ministers have gone to Malaysia where the worst side of the current sad predicament with regards to the expatriate community has come to public knowledge. They have been able to get promises from the Malaysian Government that will both ease the conditions of Bangladeshis working there at present and also  ease the way to send more people there in future. This has been a good achievement by the Ministers after the Malaysians had threatened to cut the life line for sending our workers there.

In making the paradigm shift in the manpower export policy, it is imperative first to bring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Expatriate Affairs into closer interaction. At the same time, the new policy must place all the Labour Attaches working in the Bangladeshi Missions under the Foreign Ministry and sent abroad only after they have a few years experience in what diplomacy is about. We must not forget that the Malaysian crisis was brought about by a Labour Attaché’s un-diplomatic interviews to the Malaysian media. On a broader spectrum, under the Government’s economic diplomacy, it is not just the Labour attaches, all officers working in Bangladeshi Missions abroad except the defense personnel must be brought under the Foreign Minister as is done by all other governments.

A major drawback of a non-existent manpower policy or an ad-hoc one is the fact that we send our people to work abroad without any or very little training. Our knowledge tells us that for every Bangladeshi national sent abroad, his sponsor pays a sum to the manpower agent in Bangladesh an amount for training that is usually pocketed by the agent. As a consequence, our national are sent abroad without even the knowledge on how to sit in an aircraft. A training programme should train them on all these so that when they go abroad, they can establish a good image for the country. The fact that their sponsors pay for such training and there is no reason why such training should not be given. A new manpower export policy should build training as an integral part of the process.

In looking into the need for a new manpower export policy, the government could also look into an agreement that Bangladesh signed with Japan in 2005 under which Bangladesh could have sent unlimited number of workers in 60 small and medium enterprises for training for 3 years under the Japan International Training and Cooperation (JITCO). In the three years , these workers could have each earned Taka 15 to 20 Lacs  in addition to receiving world class training and not required to pay even a single penny for it. The programmes other advantage could have been the fact that this would have given Bangladeshi workers presence in Japan  so that when Japan eventually opens its manpower market as it surely must in the face of its declining population, we would have that extra advantage on other countries that will then vie for a share in Japan’s manpower market. The whole programme has been allowed to die naturally as this programme did not allow manpower agents to operate and did not allow the Ministry to charge any money from those who would have gone to Japan under the programme. The programme has been shelved , despite its potentials, as there is no money for people involved in giving the potential workers permission to go to Japan  under the JITCO programme.

The Government has its own mechanism to initiate policy decisions through formulation of policy papers and policy task forces. However, at the outset, it may invite all the stakeholders including representatives of expatriate and migrant organizations to attend a policy dialogue to decide on various aspects of the policy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare could jointly sponsor such a dialogue.

CFAS Editorial Board

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