Aspiring migrant workers who have failed to go to Malaysia even after depositing larger amounts of money are now grappling with uncertainty over refund of the money from the agencies.
Suffering workers said that agencies were setting dates and repeatedly missing the deadlines on one pretext after another.
鈥業 cannot trust the agency anymore. They cheated me dozens of times since the beginning of the process in mid-2022,鈥� said Md Rabbi Hossain.
He said that his agency asked him thrice to come to Dhaka to get back his money since the deadline to fly ended on May 31.
Rabbi, 27, from Patuakhali, preferred not to name his agency and said that he had deposited Tk 4.5 lakh to that agency in July 2022, but it eventually failed to send him to Malaysia.
Malaysia reopened its doors to Bangladeshi workers in August 2022 after suspending it for over four years for corruption and irregularities.
Manpower experts said that the country closed its doors again for the same reason as many workers were sent to fake companies in Malaysia that created a messy situation in the destination country and descended these migrants into a bitter struggle for survival.
Experts blamed the syndicate of 101 agencies for the chaos and sufferings.
While the victim workers are struggling to get back money as Malaysia has refused to extend deadline for entry, neither the government nor the Bangladesh Association for International Recruiting Agencies has taken any pragmatic measures to return their money.
Meanwhile, prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday told the parliament that the issue of the failure to send workers to Malaysia was under investigation and that action would be taken against those responsible.
Her response came in answer to a supplementary question from opposition chief whip Mujibul Haque Chunnu at Jatiya Sangsad who asked who failed to send people to Malaysia within the specified time.
Pointing out that the government had launched a special flight, the prime minister said that the special flight along with other flights took the workers to Malaysia within the deadline.
BAIRA president Mohammad Abul Bashar, however, said that they would try to refund the money collecting it from the agencies, or send the stranded workers abroad on priority basis. He did not specify though which country they would be sent to.
State minister for expatriates鈥� welfare Shafiqur Rahman Chowdhury on Tuesday said that he would urge Malaysia to allow stranded workers to get in even after the deadline had expired.
In a courtesy call, Malaysian high commissioner to Bangladesh Haznah Md Hashim on Wednesday visited the state minister.
After a meeting Haznah Md Hashim said that her government stood by May 31 deadline for foreign workers鈥� entry.
Government data shows a total of 50,004 Bangladeshi aspirants failed to migrate to Malaysia after completing almost all the processes.
A total of 16,970 aspirant migrants could not fly for Malaysia at the last minute solely due to air ticket crisis.