migrant visa trade
Over Tk5000cr siphoned off last year
STAFF REPORTER
Over Tk 5,000 crore was laundered from the country last year to buy visas for male migrant workers, says a study of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB). Around 90 percent of the male migrant workers also became victims of some sort of corruption in 2016, according to the TIB study.
The qualitative study titled Ensuring good governance in labor migration: Problem and solutions was conducted by the transparency watchdog from the period of May 2016 to January 2017. The findings of the study were unveiled during a press conference at its headquarter in the capital yesterday.
The study reveals that a total of Tk 5,234 crore was spent in buying visas for male workers going to KSA, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Singapore and Qatar while the total amount taken from migrant workers for visa purposes was Tk 16,873 crore.
TIB executive director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said the money is being sent abroad through illegal channels. In many cases, the money Bangladeshi workers earn abroad is used to buy visas and that is why the country is losing remittance.
The study was conducted through direct interviews of the victims, in-depth interviews, papers, policy and relevant act analysis and group discussions.
TIB indentified 16 types of malpractices in five steps at different levels of labor migration. These corruptions take place during the visa collection, visa authentication, illegal visa selling to the aspiring migrant workers, medical examination and visa processing stages, it said.
The study identified that a nexus comprising of destination countrys employers and recruiting agents with Bangladesh recruiting agents involvement are buying and selling visas. This group is also involved in money laundering through Hundi at the destination countries.
The study found that the Bangladeshi embassies in the destination countries took bribe in authenticating demand letters without verifying those. In case of medical examinations, there are incidents of declaring fit persons unfit if the aspirant worker refused to pay bribe. There are also incidents of bribery in getting police clearance certificates, TIB found.
Applicants had to pay bribe money between Tk 13,000 to Tk 15,000 for approval on each application at Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry, the TIB report found. Meanwhile, Tk 100-200 was paid as bribe for approval of each application at Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) which processed 7,57,731 applications in the same year, the TIB report added.
TIB identified some of the limitations of the Overseas Migration and Expatriation Act 2013. The report said, the act didnt include any clause about the role of agents in labor migration. Many of the provisions of the act are suggestive rather than compulsory and the personal initiative for migration is not brought under the purview of the act.
Providing information about the labor migration, TIB said that the ministry approved 61,122 applications in 2016. A total of Tk 1.0729 lakh crore was earned from remittance in 2016. In 2015, the remittance earning was 1.1936 lakh crore.
Providing recommendations, TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said that some of the provisions of the existing Overseas Migration and Expatriation Act 2013 should be amended, such as the provision for selecting labours and fixing the compensation prices should be made compulsory rather than suggestive.
Also the provision for giving no objection certificate (NOC) for personal initiative of migration should be considered and the issue should be brought under the purview of the act, said Dr Iftekharuzzaman.
Shahzada M Akram, Senior Program Manager of Research and Policy Division of TIB and Monjur E Khoda presented the findings of the study at the seminar. M Hafizuddin Khan, Member of TIB Trustee Board, Dr Sumaiya Khaer, Deputy Executive Director of TIB, among others, were present at the press conference.
