Govt now to send workers to Bahrain under G-to-G process

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
Dhaka, Feb 25 (UNB) – Like Malaysia, the government will start sending workers to Bahrain under the state arrangement from March, said Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain on Monday.

“They (Bahrain) will recruit manpower from Bangladesh under the G-to-G (government-to-government) mechanism. Both Bangladesh and Bahrain have reached a decision in this regard. Workers will go there from the next month,” he said.

The minister was talking to reporters after a meeting with a three-member delegation of Bahrain at Probashi Kalyan Bhaban in the capital.

Expatriates' Welfare Secretary Dr Zafar Ahmed Khan and director general of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) Begum Shamsun Nahar, head of Bahrain delegation Ausamah Bin Abdulla Al-Absi were, among others, present.

Asked how many workers would be sent to the island country, Khandaker Mosharraf said they are yet to finalise the matter.

He, however, said about 20,000-25,000 workers from the country went to Bahrain last year and the number could reach to 70,000-80,000 this year.

About the migration cost of workers seeking jobs in the Middle East country, the minister said either the government of Bahrain or the employer bears the airfare of a worker as per the law of that country.

“For this, an intending worker will have to bear the cost for his passport, medical test and training here. Thus, the total migration cost for a worker will be between Tk 16,000 and 20,000,” he said.

Justifying their move to send workers under the state arrangement, Mosharraf said it will reduce malpractice in the recruitment process of the workers. “We (both labour sending and receiving countries) will also be able to know the whereabouts of the workers if they are sent under the G-to-G process.”

Replying to a query, Abdulla Al-Absi, chief executive of labour market regulatory authority of Bahrain, said, “We’ve agreed to pursue the G-to-G agreement. We managed to cover a lot of grounds today.”

He, however, said they did not sign any final agreement in recruiting manpower from Bangladesh but a record of discussion.

He expressed the hope that they will start hiring workers from Bangladesh within very shortest possible time.

Earlier, the government took initiatives to send workers to Malaysia under its own arrangement with a view to putting an end to the middlemen's meddling in the recruitment process.

The government is supposed to send workers to Malaysia from early March.