State minister for expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment Shafiqur Rahman Chowdhury said on Tuesday that so far 3,000 people who failed to migrate to Malaysia filed complaints with the probe committee formed by the ministry to investigate the crisis.
Talking to reporters at the ministry, he also said that the probe committee was given five more working days to submit its report on their request as it was yet to complete its investigation.
The ministry formed the committee immediately after at least 50,000 aspirant migrants failed to reach Malaysia by the deadline of May 31.
Tuesday was the last day to submit the probe report.
The committee, headed by additional secretary Noor Md Mahbubul Haq, however, failed to submit its report.
The ministry asked the aspirant migrants to complain to [email protected] so that the ministry could oblige agencies to compensate them.
On May 31, Malaysia shut doors to Bangladeshi workers over a huge irregularities and corruption over the recruitment process.
Malaysia, in August 2022, reopened the market after keeping it suspended for over four years over corruption allegations against a syndicate of Bangladeshi recruiting agencies.
According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training data, 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 couldn’t fly for Malaysia at the last minutes for air ticket crisis only, the bureau said.
Asked about the syndicate, Shafiqur Rahman said that Bangladesh would never support a syndicate that would be found guilty in the probe and would be punished.
He said that the Oman government promised to legalise 96,000 undocumented Bangladeshi workers and to hire more workers in 12 trades.
He said that the Oman government was requested not to impose any fees on the documentation process.
In August 2022, Malaysia reopened the market after keeping it suspended for over four years for corruption allegation and again shut the market on May 31 amid the same allegations.
Recruiting agents and migrants complained that at the last minutes the airlines charged Tk 1.5 lakh for a ticket used to sell at Tk 30,000.
The aspiring migrants alleged that they took between Tk 5 and 7 lakh from each, while the government set Tk 78,990 for the migration cost.