Code of conduct for manpower agents

To bring about discipline in manpower export and for the welfare of expatriate Bangladeshis, the government yesterday issued three separate rules including a code of conduct for the recruiting agents.

According to the new 12-point code of conduct, it is mandatory for an agent to make at least three hundred overseas employment in the first five years. Other wise the license of the agent would be cancelled and half of his security money confiscated and transferred to the wage earners welfare fund.

The rules also prohibited recruiting agents from taking any extra fee from immigrants other than the service charge fixed by the government. The service charges would be declared through gazette notifications from time to time. The charge, however, would not include transport costs.

Other charges, like that for medical check up, passport and visa would also be declared separately through gazette notification.

The code of conduct has made the data bank system, where information regarding immigrants are kept, mandatory.

If information of any immigrant is not available in the data bank the recruiters are to contact the district manpower office that will be maintaining a register of job seekers in the area.

The new rules are immigration rules 2002, code of conduct and license rules for the recruiting agents 2002 and wage earners welfare fund rules 2002.

All three rules were issued under section 19 of Emigration Ordinance 1982. The ministry of expatriate welfare and overseas employment issued these through a statutory regulatory order.

These rules for manpower export sector has been issued by the government for the first time in last 20 years, sources in the ministry said.

According to sources, previously the operations of the manpower export and wage earners welfare fund were conducted through executive orders of the government without any specific rule.

"But the government often faced difficulties whenever any order of it was challenged at the court," said Dalil Uddin Mondal, secretary in-charge of the expatriate welfare ministry.

He said the new rules would not only bring about discipline but would also help control forgery and other irregularities in manpower export sector.

When contacted, Ghulam Mostafa, secretary general of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) declined to make any comments about the government's new rule as he had not yet got a copy.

He said "It would have been better if the government had discussed with us before finalising the new rules. We had given our opinions earlier but do not know how much of it was incorporated."

According to the new rules, the recruiting agents are to provide all necessary information to workers through newspaper advertisements. They should also be informed about all amenities in the job and be properly briefed.

The recruiters are to provide all necessary assistance to the workers during their stay abroad. An agent should not consider any demand from an employer who had cheated or deprived other Bangladeshi agents, the rules said.

They should also avoid all activities that create problems for the expatriate Bangladeshi workers and tarnish the country's image, it added.

The wage earners welfare fund would be conducted by a government formed board of directors. The secretary of expatriate welfare would be the chairman of the 11-member board.

The board reserves all rights in taking necessary steps for the welfare of the expatriate Bangladeshis.