Malaysia is against allowing Bangladeshi private recruiting agencies to collect job demands from the Malaysian employers as it is apprehensive of irregularities in this recruitment system.

Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam yesterday told The Daily Star, “We want that our private sector is allowed to send workers in Malaysia along with the government-to-government (G2G) arrangement. But the Malaysian delegation has disagreed on this point, saying the agencies cannot be involved in this.”

The Malaysian delegation, which discussed the modus operandi of recruitment of Bangladeshi workers, feared that “criminals” might go to that country in the name of jobseekers, said the minister.

Malaysia and Bangladesh were supposed to sign an agreement, G2G Plus, yesterday, but could not do so as there were differences between the two sides over some issues on the workers' recruitment modalities, he said.

“However, minutes of the meetings held between the two delegations were exchanged and an agreement would be signed after both the sides discuss the issue with their respective governments,” added the minister.

Seeking anonymity, an official of the expatriates' welfare ministry said according to the discussion at the meeting, Malaysian employers would submit the demands of Bangladeshi workers to the Malaysian labour ministry.

The Malaysian labour ministry, after scrutiny, will send the demands to Bangladesh's Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET).

The BMET will then select workers from the database and arrange their recruitment. It will also distribute the rest of the job demands to the private recruiting agencies, the official said.

“Therefore, the private agencies do not need to collect job demands directly from the Malaysian employers,” the official explained.

Asked how the private recruiting agencies would be selected, he said a system would be developed for this.

Yesterday, Malaysian Human Resources Ministry Secretary General Saripuddin Bin Hj Kasim and expatriates' welfare ministry secretary Khandker Md Iftekhar Haider exchanged the minutes of the Joint Working Committee meeting at a city hotel.

The Malaysian delegation came with a new formula named G2G Plus to expedite the recruitment process of Bangladeshi workers, officials at the ministry said.

A memorandum of understanding was signed between Malaysia and Bangladesh for the G2G in November 2012 after Malaysia withdrew a four-year embargo on the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers.

However, Malaysia recruited only 10,000 workers in its plantation sector in two years under the G2G. Now, the Southeast Asian nation is considering recruiting Bangladeshi workers in other sectors like construction, manufacture and services, ministry officials said.

To speed up the recruitment process, officials of the two countries met in June this year. At that time, Malaysia announced that it would recruit 1.5 million Bangladeshis in the next three years.