Speaking to FMT, North-South Initiative director Adrian Pereira said the costs borne by foreigners wishing to work in Malaysia would be reduced if the human resources ministry were solely responsible for all approvals.

Currently, a company wishing to employ foreigners has to make an application to the human resources ministry, but final approvals are given by the home affairs ministry.

Pereira said the involvement of two ministries in the procedures made it hard to ensure transparency.

“And there will be double dealing, which adds to the costs,” he alleged without elaborating.

He repeated a call he made some time ago for a one-stop centre for the recruitment of migrants, saying it should be supervised by the human resources ministry.

Recently, Bangladesh’s Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad was quoted in a news report as saying that his country did not intend to send any more of its citizens to work in Malaysia until a more transparent recruitment system with lower costs was established.

He said some had been known to fork out nearly RM19,000 in order to work in Malaysia.

The Malaysian government suspended the intake of Bangladeshi workers in September 2018 pending an investigation into the system used to hire them.

Officials from the two countries have held several negotiations in the past year, but the market for Bangladeshi workers has not reopened yet.