The Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur has balked at the Malaysian government's appointment of a company to monopolise the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia.

It's disturbed that its government would have no say in the process.

"The Malaysian government will select Bangladesh recruiting authorities through an online system supervised by a (Malaysian) company.

"The Bangladesh government will not have any control to ensure whether any recruiting agency will get work or not," read a letter from the Bangladesh High Commission to the expatriates' welfare ministry in Dhaka, dated Dec 6, as reported by The Daily Star today.

Labour counsellor at the high commission, Sayedul Islam, also requested in the letter that the ministry consider this labour recruitment matter seriously before signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malaysia on this.

The letter also points out that the Bangladesh government will be liable for all failures of the selected recruiting agencies even though they will have no role in the recruitment process as proposed by Malaysia.

"There is a fear of limiting the job of recruiting manpower only by some agencies after creating a syndicate by the company," read the letter, though it did not mention names.

Synerflux Sdn Bhd was appointed by Malaysia in September as the "sole and exclusive entity" to manage an online system known as Bangladeshi Workers Management System (BWMS), a decision which the Bangladesh government was informed of.

Synerflux has also come under criticism and opposition, such as from the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira), which has requested their government not to allow the appointment of the company.

“The appointment of Synerflux is part of a syndicate that will control and monopolise labour recruitment and breed irregularities in the market.

"So, we requested the government not to allow the company,” Baira President Muhammad Abul Basher reportedly said.

Call for equal roles

The labour wing of the Bangladesh High Commission had recommended that the two governments have equal roles for the recruitment process, such as setting one-year limit for each agent in labour recruitment, specifying the job demand and forming a joint monitoring team on labour recruitment.

Bangladesh Expatriates' Welfare Minister Nurul Islam reportedly said they would discuss this issue with the Malaysian government before they signed the MoU.

“We are negotiating with the Malaysian government on some points. But we want to assure that the MoU will be signed making sure that our citizens' rights are protected,” he was reported as saying.

Following reports of abuse in 2007, Malaysia had stopped recruitment from Bangladesh in 2009, though they then started recruiting again in 2012.

However, only about 10,000 have been recruited to Malaysia since, and all have been in the plantation sector.

Those in the industry said powerful syndicates are the ones responsible for ensuring that the government to government (G2G) recruitment system failed.

In June 2014, Malaysia said it would start recruiting through private agencies for all sectors, and several Malaysian companies had then lobbied both governments to land the job of online recruitment.

As one of the early frontrunner Real Time Networking faced severe criticism, Synerflux was selected.

The Bangladesh cabinet was supposed to approve the draft MoU on Nov 9, but following requests from Malaysia, it was deferred.