The ministry also failed to control recruiting agencies, which continuously involved themselves in an unholy competition in overseas recruitment process. This led to the increase in migration cost, which ultimately became a setback for promotion of manpower export.

Bangladesh as a labour surplus country has ample opportunities of earning foreign exchange by sending its workforce to the developed countries under the framework of General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS), a section of World Trade Organisation (WTO). But the country was unable to deal with the global issues to promote its cause.

The ministry even could not manage manpower employment in some labour-hungry Asian countries including Malaysia and South Korea just because of syndication of some recruiting agencies and uncontrolled migration cost.

EXPLORING NEW MARKETS
While neighbouring India and Nepal made great success in opening new labour markets in the developed European countries and America, Canada and Australia, Bangladesh has miserably failed to gain any foothold there, even those thrown into its lap.

For example, in the beginning of the BNP-led government, Italy offered a substantial quota of hiring workers from Bangladesh. Italy wanted Bangladesh sign a readmission agreement, which is simply consenting to deport the irregular jobseekers in the country.

This would not have affected Bangladesh at all, as almost all the Bangladeshis who previously entered Italy irregularly were pardoned under amnesties and issued work permits. Italy wanted to welcome regular migrants and discourage irregular ones, as they need workers too.

Surprisingly, the issue became a puzzle to the ministry. After sitting on the proposal for a long time, officials asked the foreign and a few other ministries for opinion.

But the foreign ministry tragically torpedoed the proposal on grounds that if Italy starts deporting "illegal" Bangladeshis, there would be severe political fallouts.

"This was a great opportunity for Bangladesh, as Italy pays much higher salary compared to that of the Middle Eastern countries," said a recruiting agent.

Businesses also suggested that other countries of the European Union would also follow Italy's example had Bangladesh signed the agreement. If signed, it could have opened a new horizon for Bangladesh in overseas employment.

The foreign ministry is supposed to cooperate with the expatriates' ministry in opening new markets, but no sign of it has ever been observed.

The expatriates' ministry wrote to the foreign office to ask the US mission in Dhaka for help in opening CGFNS (a globally conducted test by the US to determine nurses' proficiency level) examination centre in Bangladesh.

But the issue is still in the deep freeze. Neither the foreign nor the expatriates' ministry put it forward.

A certain grade in the test is required for employment of foreign nurses in the US. The nearest such centre is in Pune in India, which is financially and logistically not affordable for most Bangladeshi nurses.

Manpower businesses said had there been such a centre here, a good number of Bangladeshi nurses could have got jobs in the US.

A dearth of funds and knowledgeable officials in the expatriates' ministry is also a major deterrent to exploring new markets.

For instance, Sudan is a potential market for foreign workers as it gets huge investments by foreign companies. Some of those companies expressed interest in hiring workers from Bangladesh. But there is no Bangladeshi mission in the region except in Cairo, which showed no interest in this regard.

Migration experts observe the subordinate mindset of the expatriates' ministry and its utter incompetence are also partly responsible for such failure.

DECLINE IN TRADITIONAL MARKETS
Overseas employment in the traditional markets, mainly in the Middle Eastern countries, took a sharp decline because of high migration cost.

A worker now pays Tk 2 lakh to Tk 2.3 lakh for a job of a cleaner in Saudi Arabia at a salary of 350 riyal (Tk 5,600), whereas the cost was Tk 1.4 lakh to Tk 1.7 lakh only a year ago.

However, emphasis on employment of local youths by the importing countries also contributed to the decline.

According to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), the KSA alone employed almost 72.48 percent of total manpower exported from Bangladesh in 2002.

The number came down to 35.60 percent during January to September last year. The decline pushed down overall overseas employment to 15.45 percent in 2005 compared to that of 2004.

About 25 lakh of over 40 lakh Bangladeshi expatriates work in the ME countries and among them about 16 lakh are in the KSA.

Absence of a bilateral agreement and cold diplomatic relations with Oman are also thwarting huge opportunities of employing Bangladeshi workers.

Oman had about 2.5 lakh Bangladeshi workers just two decades ago which, instead of increasing, has come down to 1.1 lakh now. The country, which is third in the ME in terms of sending remittance, could hire at least 50,000 workers if there were a bilateral agreement, Bangladesh Ambassador to Oman Golam Akbar said recently.

With much hype, Bangladesh signed a cooperation agreement with Qatar. The government allowed enhancement of flight frequencies of Qatar Airways upon verbal understanding that they would open and take massive manpower from Bangladesh.

Though the flight numbers have been increased, Bangladesh is yet to realise its portion of the bargain.

Another ME country, Lebanon, has demand for Bangladeshi workers, but it is not much fruitful either as there is no Bangladesh mission in Beirut.

A new opportunity has been created for construction workers in the wake of the recent Israeli attacks on Lebanon. But neither of the foreign or expatriates' ministries took any initiatives to this effect.

FAILURE TO CONTROL RECRUITING AGENCIES
The ministry's efforts to control migration cost never had a chance due mainly to big agents spearheaded by lawmakers close to Hawa Bhaban.

Flaunting rules, they always got away scot-free with less than minimum salaries and highest possible migration cost. The cases of Malaysia and Korea are the best examples of how the ministry totally failed to regulate recruiting agencies.

MALAYSIA
In the last few years Malaysia banned hiring manpower from Bangladesh several times on allegation that recruiting agencies here overcharge and even create an unholy competition in securing job demand letters.

The agencies are also accused of sending more workers than the number of original visas issued.

Late in July this year, Malaysia lifted the last ban imposed, allowed Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) to manage the total migration process and installed a computerised network to prevent forgery.

Malaysia also gave Baira an option to design a distribution system of job demand letters of Malaysian companies. But controversies arose in the trade body itself.

A section of agencies said the demand letters should equally be distributed among all the Baira members so that the unholy competition could be averted.

But a number of influential agencies, including those owned by both BNP and Awami League lawmakers, said this would depend on the agencies' capacity to secure the letters.

Over 100 agencies, which had close links with Malaysian agents, supported this view, while most others were unaware of the real context of the proposed system.

Eventually, the latter made 'successful' attempts to clinch their goal, resulting in a severe competition in securing job demand letters.

These agencies started crowding Malaysia and some of them allegedly made a syndicate and began persuading Malaysian employers. This seriously annoyed the Malaysian government and actually invited another partial ban on manpower hiring on October 4.

Some Baira members filed complaints with the government that the agencies are charging each worker Tk 1.5 lakh to Tk 2 lakh, whereas Bangladesh and Malaysia bilaterally fixed the rate at $1,200 or Tk 84,000.

They alleged the Baira was charging the extra money on the plea of paying fees to Malaysian lobbyists. But satisfying some Bangladeshi ministers, who also demanded a share of the extra sum, was another reason.

On October 22, the expatriates' ministry asked the commerce ministry to suspend Baira executive committee. The Baira was overcharging the workers and Baira President MAH Salim rented an office in Kuala Lumpur without the government permission, the ministry reasoned.

It also sought permission from the Prime Minister's Office to form a committee to investigate the matter. The committee is scheduled to give its reports in 30 days.

There are allegations former state minister for the expatriates' ministry Maj (retd) Quamrul Islam, who maintains close links with Hawa Bhaban, allowed recruiting agents to send workers to Malaysia last year receiving a bribe of Tk 15,000 for per worker.

At that time Malaysia allowed Bangladesh to send about 8,000 workers, who had been deported under the general amnesty. Taking the advantage of bribing, many agents substituted original workers by new ones keeping other particulars intact.

The news quickly travelled to the Malaysian authorities who showed little interest to deal with the manpower issue at government level.

Consequently, the recent arrangement has been done with private sector business body, the Baira. Malaysia hardly bothered to discuss their decision with the government. The country even did not respond to a formal request of the expatriates' ministry for hiring 30 percent of the total workers through the government-owned recruiting agency BOESL.

SOUTH KOREA
Similarly, South Korea, another lucrative job market for Bangladeshi workers, also identified high migration cost as the root cause for switching jobs and illegal overstaying of workers.

Bangladeshi workers in Korea violate contracts by switching jobs or by migrating to Japan for higher salary because they are desperate to earn more to recover the huge amount they pay the recruiting agencies at home.

The ministry failed to reduce the migration cost to Korea that shot up to Tk 8 lakh to Tk 10 lakh. Over the five years it had no control over four recruiting agencies -- Silver Line Associate of BNP lawmaker MAH Salim, Unique Eastern (Pvt) Ltd of AL MP Noor Ali, Rupsha Overseas Ltd of BNP MP Ali Asgar Lobby, and Orbital Enterprise of former AL MP Mostafa Kamal.

Except a few hundreds, Korea banned Bangladeshi workers by a resolution in its parliament through the cartel of the four agents.

Under the Employment Permit System (EPS), Korea is hiring workers from South and Southeast Asian countries without any restrictions. Bangladesh was deprived of it only because the government failed to control the cartel of the four agencies.

WAGE EARNERS' WELFARE FUND
Wage Earners' Welfare Fund created by mandatory contributions from out-bound expatriates and supposedly to create welfare provisions for them, is a mystery. Its accumulated amount was never made public and the media has no access to any of its information.

Supported by an average collection of Tk 10 lakh every day, this swelling fund is reportedly clocking around Tk 300 crore. It takes only a few welfare measures like death compensation, housing facilities and construction of one-stop service centres to provide short stay and other facilities for aspirant migrants.

The sheer volume of the fund is a problem in itself and alluring ingenuous ways and means by its custodians to expend.

One such outlet is frequent multi-country global trips by MPs of the parliamentary standing committees, ministry and BMET officials and even Baira office-bearers in the pretext of business exploration and status survey of the expatriates.

OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT POLICY
After years of exercise, inter-ministerial meetings and dialogues with private sector, NGOs and international organisations, the cabinet approved Bangladesh Overseas Employment Policy.

But it is yet to be passed in parliament. Experts said most other ministries deleted the clauses that defined their responsibilities in promotion of overseas manpower employment. Btu the draft policy was quite comprehensive, as it was prepared after thorough consultations with other countries' policies.

FEMALE MIGRATION
In December 2002, the government partially liberalised the female migration to all ME countries on individual application basis. It was previously limited only to Saudi Arabia.

At a later stage, the Baira was given the responsibility to arrange pre-departure trainings and run the management at destination countries in cooperation with the Bangladesh missions, which the body totally failed to comply with.

In a scenario where 48 percent of the global migrants are female, Bangladesh is yet to exceed one percent mark. About 80 percent of the Indonesian, 75 percent of Sri Lankan and 90 percent of the Philippine migrants are female.

Policy inadequacy is depriving Bangladesh of so many opportunities. Besides, such a negative stance is pushing female jobseekers to bribe their exit and putting them into more vulnerable position.

Apathy and negative signals from our mission officials are stalling the ministry from taking a comprehensive policy and monitoring programme.

CONCEPT PAPER
The expatriates' welfare ministry took an initiative to prepare a comprehensive report on availability and potentiality of manpower in the country and formulate a strategy to negotiate with foreign countries in this regard.

The ministry formed a committee in December 2004 for negotiations and facilitation for liberalising temporary movement of natural persons under Mode-4 of GATS of the WTO.

A proposal for funding the study was forwarded to the Ministry of Commerce, but the exercise is in limbo since then.

Such negligence is stifling the country's most potential sector, which is contributing $5 billion-remittance every year despite unlimited obstacles.

DATA BANK
Creation of a databank at the BMET was a good initiative for storing data of the aspirant migrants, migrant workers and those returned from abroad.

But arrangement with the home ministry is still pending to use the database for online immigration system of entry and departure.

WELFARE DESK
The ministry has established two welfare desks at Zia International Airport for facilitating safe arrival and departure. But there are allegations that desk workers in connivance with corrupt immigration officials extort many aspirant migrants and help irregular migrates.

Probashi Channel, a bus service for returnee expatriates, is a laudable initiative for smooth departure and arrival, but it is not regular in operation.