30 lakh expats may lose jobs

About 30 lakh Bangladeshi migrant workers could lose their jobs and face deportation as they would be carrying the old passports after the November 24 global deadline, when only machine readable passports would be acceptable.

Malaysian company IRIS Corporation Berhad, assigned to enrol the expatriates for MRPs, has failed to perform and is to be blamed for the looming disaster, said officials at the expatriates welfare ministry.

The government was supposed to take the issue seriously and ensure that all expatriates get the MRP before the deadline, set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

From November 25 onwards, foreign governments might not accept the old passports. Expatriates carrying them might first lose their jobs and then get deported, fear officials at different foreign missions.

According to the expatriates welfare and overseas employment ministry, an estimated 60 lakh expatriate workers live abroad, most of them in the Middle-East.

Of them, 20 lakh expatriate workers have MRPs.

With the current pace of MRP issuance, some nine lakh more could have MRPs before November 24, which would leave some 30 lakh people with old passports, said officials concerned.

Officials at Bangladesh missions said most of the expatriates could be given MRPs before the deadline only if the government took the issue seriously and went for fast solutions.

The government in 2013 had decided to outsource the job to private companies so that it could speed up the process. Last year, IRIS got all the contracts in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Malaysia, where 44 lakh expatriates stay -- about 26 lakh in Saudi Arabia, 10 lakh in the UAE and 7 lakh in Malaysia.

The company was slow to begin with and eventually failed to speed up its work despite making repeated promises for nearly a year that it would, documents show.

In Saudi Arabia, the IRIS enrolled only 16,000 expatriates. Its performance was equally disappointing in the UAE where it enrolled 6,477 expatriates. The picture in Malaysia was slightly better as a Bangladeshi company was also doing the enrolment job.

A total 62,000 expatriates were enrolled and 58,000 MRPs were distributed in Malaysia, according to official records.

Despite the dismal performance, the government did not take any action against the IRIS. Instead, a section of officials of the home ministry, Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) and the MRP project kept on backing the company.

Over the last six months, mission officials in different countries expressed concern over the IRIS's slow pace and urged the government to take the matter seriously.

The foreign and expatriate welfare ministries also urged the home ministry to expedite the MRP issuance process but their plea went in vain. The home ministry remained silent despite widespread allegations of corruption and mismanagement by the IRIS.

Worried about the looming disaster, the government recently formed a taskforce led by Abul Kalam Azad, principal secretary to the prime minister, and an advisory committee, led by Expatriate Welfare Minister Mosharraf Hossain, to deal with the issue.

In its first meeting on March 13, Mosharraf came down heavily on MRP project officials and IRIS.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, the minister said IRIS would be held responsible if a single expatriate was without an MRP after the deadline. “We are going to set a target for the company to do its job. If it failed, IRIS would have to count huge financial penalties,” he said.

He said the project director of the MRP project has been asked not to release any fund to IRIS until further notice.

The advisory committee and the taskforce would hold separate meetings today to find a solution. They may also determine the fate of IRIS.

“The officials who supported IRIS and had helped create the mess for Bangladesh should also be identified and punished,” said a foreign ministry official, seeking anonymity.

Nearly 22 lakh Bangladeshi expatriates in Saudi Arabia, largest manpower receiving country, are yet to get MRPs. The government has to issue 2.40 lakh MRPs a month to get them off the hook, which seems a nearly impossible job now, said officials at the mission in Riyadh.

“We have been telling the government about the IRIS's dismal performance and that a disaster may occur if it depends on the company,” said a mission official.

In the UAE, the mission there was doing its best to give MRPs to as many expatriates as it could. About 20,000 expatriates in the UAE and the same number in Malaysia were being given MRPs a month, far below the required rate, Bangladesh mission officials there said.

The government has to provide 60,000 MRPs a month in the UAE and 55,000 MRPs in Malaysia so that all expatriates there have MRPs before the deadline.

In these three major destination countries for Bangladeshis, IRIS was supposed to start its work in August last year but it had failed to do so. It began work five months later with insufficient manpower.

In Malaysia, IRIS had set up application centres in remote areas where Bangladeshis did not want to travel for their MRP enrolment.

There were about 15 lakh expatriates in Oman, Qatar, Italy, Bahrain, Brunei, Libya, Korea, South Africa, the Maldives and some other countries across the world where MRPs were being issued through Bangladesh missions.

Of them, about 7 lakh live in Oman and Qatar and most of them have MRPs. But most Bangladeshis in other countries still have old passports, according to missions.

“We are a bit concerned about the expatriates who will not get MRPs within the deadline. They will face some problems,” said MN Zeaul Alam, the director general of the DIP.

He said the government was going to request the ICAO to extend the deadline by two years but documents of the organisation make it clear that the deadline would not be extended and the member states would have to resolve the issue bilaterally on expiry of the deadline.