An investigation revealed yesterday a three-to-four-layer middleman chain and undocumented financial transactions in manpower business that remain as a bar to compensating workers in case of their immature returns.
Such facts came to light when an investigation officer of Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) quizzed the middlemen and a few of 13 returnees. The 13 workers returned from Malaysia on September 25 and afterwards following unemployment and abuses by a Malaysian outsourcing company.
Acting Secretary Abdul Matin Chowdhury of the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment directed an arrangement of such a hearing of both the middlemen and the returnees on September 27.
The move came as recruiting agency Golden Arrow handed over 11 cheques of Tk 84,000 each to 11 workers, claiming it was paid exactly that amount by the returnees.
The workers however claimed they had paid Tk 2.3 lakh to Tk 2.5 lakh to the middlemen.
Hamidul Haque, a manpower broker in Asrafpur, Meherpur, said he paid Tk 1.95 lakh to recruiting agency Tangail Overseas for sending Shahabuddin to Malaysia.
"Tangail Overseas entrusted Golden Arrow with the responsibility. I don't know how much Tangail Overseas gave to Golden Arrow," he told investigation officer Lokman Hossain Miah, deputy director of BMET, during quizzing.
However, Shahabuddin who hailed from Chuadanga said he had paid Tk 2.3 lakh to Mamunur Rashid, an employee of Hamidul's NGO Sobah in Meherpur.
In response, Hamidul said, "I don't know if Rashid took Tk 2.3 lakh from Shahabuddin. I received from Rashid Tk 1.95 lakh and gave it to Tangail Overseas."
"Rashid was supposed to give me Tk 2.2 lakh from which my share of profit was to be Tk 25,000.”
On the other hand, Siraj Mia, managing director of recruiting agency Liza Overseas, said one Rajdoot came to him through his relative Delwar.
"On receiving assurance, I told Delwar to contact Golden Arrow. He paid them Tk 1.75 lakh and subsequently Rajdoot went to Malaysia in April. Unfortunately, he returned home finding no job there," Siraj said.
Rajdoot told the investigation officer he paid Tk 1.98 lakh and his parents sent him Tk 35,000 more when he along with many other workers was unemployed and half-fed or unfed in Malaysia.
Quizzing revealed almost similar amount of money paid to the middlemen and Golden Arrow. But the agency's General Manager SM Fakhrul Alam who was present at the hearing told reporters they received only Tk 84,000 from each worker.
"The agency will pay each of the workers claim if they can prove it," he said.
The investigation officer fixed October 29 for another hearing and asked the workers to wait for compensation until then.
The returnees said the ministry's acting secretary during his visit to Malaysia promised them Tk 2.3 lakh each in compensation upon their return.
"He [acting secretary] also promised that all the 80 workers who staged a hunger strike on the High Commission premises in Kuala Lumpur will be sent home by October 5. But until now only 13 have returned," said Shahidul Islam, a returnee worker.