Top-up e-wallet – the only system available under the MiGRAMS portal to pay workers’ registration fee for Bangladeshis heading to Malaysia – is no longer available since mid-January this year, effectively preventing dozens of agencies from exporting manpower.
An investigation conducted by The Business Post revealed a sinister racket led by Bangladeshi origin Dato Sri Aminul Islam bin Abdul Nor, who owns Bestinet, which in turn owns the MiGRAMS portal.
He is controlling every aspect of the manpower export process in Malaysia through this system.
Though the e-wallet disappeared from the MiGRAMS system, a number of agencies – backed and controlled by Aminul – are paying workers’ registration fees and clearing workers using channels exclusively available to them.
This underhanded tactic is not only safeguarding the monopoly of Bestinet and the agencies it controls, but it is severely damaging Bangladesh’s potential to export manpower to Malaysia by preventing other agencies from paying the 100 ringgit fee using MiGRAMS.
This issue has brought uncertainty in the process of sending thousands of Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia.
MiGRAMS is an online portal where every aspirant worker need to be registered to undergo health screening by paying a 100 ringgit registration fee.
Workers registration is done after quota approval of workers demanded by Malaysian employers, and the demands are then distributed among Bangladeshi recruiting agencies through Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS).
To work in Malaysia, a worker has to collect a Calling Visa and then E-Visa. Workers also need attestation from the Bangladesh Embassy in Kuala Lumpur to fly to Malaysia. A worker needs a health screening report first as a prerequisite for getting a calling visa.
This manipulation is depriving Bangladeshi workers from entering the Malaysian labour market, posing a serious threat to the sector’s rich potential.
Dozens of agencies who have a good reputation and track record in manpower exports are now in a crisis, and thousands of Bangladeshi workers are suffering due to MiGRAMS.
Industry insiders say Bestinet – the company who owns MiGRAMS – is now allocating credit only to agencies in the racket. Thus many recruiting agencies are being deprived, despite having adequate demand for workers.