No ray of hope for migrant workers in budget

The government has neglected to outline adequate initiatives in the proposed budget for the next fiscal year to support migrant workers, meaning the country may miss out on opportunities to raise remittance earnings on the back of a higher number of Bangladeshis going abroad.

Experts said they hoped that at least the remittance incentives would be increased and that the budget would provide some relief by introducing new programmes, including various schemes and incentives to address the woes of migrant workers.

However, although the government acknowledged their contribution, there is a big gap in terms of taking proper initiatives to protect their interests, experts said.

While placing the proposed budget for 2024-25, Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said: "Overseas employment is one of the main sectors of Bangladesh's economy.

"The remittance sent by expatriate workers is playing a significant role in increasing the foreign exchange reserves and making the country's economy self-reliant by reducing dependence on foreign aid."

In FY10, remittances amounted to $10.99 billion. It doubled to $21.61 billion in FY23.

The minister mentioned that steps were taken to establish 50 more technical training centres (TTCs) in FY25 in addition to the existing 104 to ensure trade-based training.

"We hoped remittance incentives would be increased to at least 5 percent in this budget, but it has remained at 2.5 percent," said Tasneem Siddiqui, chair of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit.

The government began offering a 2 percent incentive in FY20 to encourage legal remittance transfers and prevent transactions through the informal hundi system.

In 2022, this incentive was increased to 2.5 percent.

Siddiqui, also a former professor of political science at the University of Dhaka, said in the case of the death of a migrant worker, repatriation of their body or legal support in that country would have to be funded from the revenue budget.

She added that TTCs should be brought under public-private partnerships because the government alone cannot manage so many facilities.

Migrant remittances are a big source of US dollars and they are playing a major role as Bangladesh contends with a dollar shortage, said Shariful Hasan, associate director of the Migration Programme and Youth Platform at BRAC.

"But there is no major initiative in the proposed budget for the welfare of those migrant workers. This is a very sad thing," Hasan said.

"No vulnerable migrant worker returning from abroad receives any assistance from the government's social safety net programmes. Migrants' workers are like money machines to families and reserves to the state," he added.

If a migrant worker dies, his family gets Tk 3 lakh, but even that does not come from government coffers. The family receives this money from the welfare fee that an migrant pays when leaving the country, he added.

Hasan lamented that there was no investment for the welfare of migrants, who bring so many dollars into the country.

Furthermore, he observed that government spends money to run TTCs.

"But how many have gone abroad after receiving training from the TTCs? If we can take more initiatives to care of migrants and invest more in them, they will give us big returns," he said.

He also demanded a welfare centre for migrant workers in every embassy of Bangladesh.

Syed Saiful Haque, chairman of the WARBE Development Foundation, said workers' welfare is funded with workers' money, a practice that the government should move away from.

"Allocation should be increased from the revenue budget," he said.

As the workers' welfare is funded through the worker's money, government officials have no accountability. If they spend government money, there will be accountability, he added.