The Ministry of Expatriate Welfare has decided to provide financial aid of Tk 20,000 to 25,000 to Bangladeshi expatriate workers who have recently gone or are expected to travel to Saudi Arabia to cover hotel stay during quarantine.
“In addition, to avoid compulsory institutional quarantine, it has been decided to vaccinate workers before going to different countries including Saudi Arabia,” said Ahmed Munirus Salehin, Secretary of the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare.
He said, “If a hotel booking costs Tk 40,000 for a migrant worker to stay in the mandatory institutional quarantine for seven days, the ministry will pay Tk 20,000 and the ministry will add Tk 5000 more if the cost goes to more than 50 to 60 thousand.
Noting that the new guidelines for travel to Saudi Arabia came into effect on May 20, he added, "Those who went to Saudi Arabia after the new guidelines came will also be provided this financial aid. In this case, the Saudi embassy in Bangladesh will take care of the matter and the money will be provided by the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare.”
Earlier, on Thursday (May 27) AK Abdul Momen, the Minister for Foreign Affairs said that the government has decided to subsidize expatriate workers from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia to reduce the cost of quarantine. The hotels set up by the Saudi government for the quarantine of expatriates are very expensive and the expatriates are less interested in going to these hotels.
He said, “Seeing their suffering, the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has instructed to arrange the hotel service. So we have taken the initiative to provide the subsidy. I have discussed the matter with the Minister for Expatriate Welfare as well.”
The new guidelines, however, state that those who do not live permanently in Saudi Arabia and are traveling to Saudi Arabia for the first time will not need quarantine if they go 14 days after receiving all doses of the Corona vaccine.
In this regard, Munirus Salehin said, "We are working on how this huge task of vaccinating each of the expat workers can be done easily. We have asked everyone to apply for corona vaccine at the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET). Therefore, the applicants will be considered eligible for vaccination. ”
About 40,000 workers are expected to leave for Saudi Arabia in the next one to one-and-a-half months. Representatives of the recruiting agencies say that it would cost Tk 60,000 to 70,000 for a migrant worker to book a hotel after moving to Saudi Arabia.
On May 25, Saudi Airlines said it would not be able to provide any assistance to expatriate workers when booking hotels. At this decision, Bangladeshi workers felt helpless.
