Still no to Bangladeshi workers
Cordial meeting: Najib meeting Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of CHOGM in Port of Spain on Saturday.
PORT OF SPAIN (Trinidad and Tobago): The freeze on the intake of Bangladeshi workers will stay despite a request from their government for a review of the decision, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
Najib conveyed this to his counterpart Sheikh Hasina Wajed during their talks on the sidelines of the Common wealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009 here on Saturday.
Speaking to Malaysian journalists at the end of Day Two of the conference, he said: “I explained to her that we decided on the freeze to prevent unscru pulous agents from exploiting the workers.”
He said many Bangladeshi workers had been duped by these agents into believing that they would get well-paying jobs in Malaysia.
Some of them, he said, had even sold their belongings including livestock to fund their journeys to Malaysia.
“This is the kind of deception that we want to prevent,” he noted.
According to Najib, the Bangladeshi side understood that in the current econo mic climate, it would be difficult for Malaysia to increase the number of workers from Bangladesh.
The Cabinet decided to freeze the intake of Bangladeshi workers in October 2007, the second time such a decision was made after the first in 1999.
In March this year, the Cabinet also cancelled visas for Bangladeshi nationals who obtained their work permits in 2007 but have yet to enter the country.
The move was taken in line with the government’s decision to minimise intake of foreign workers, except in certain critical sectors. — Bernama.
No comments:
Post a Comment