Nurul blames Rohingya for overseas job loss

Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam BSc yesterday said several thousand Rohingyas holding Bangladeshi passports had already gone to different countries and were working there depriving Bangladeshi workers.

Addressing a press conference in Chittagong city, he said some people like upazila chairmen were helping Rohingyas by issuing them certificates to help them obtain Bangladeshi passports out of greed for small amounts of money like Tk 4,000 or Tk 5,000.

"If we don't help them, they will not be able to get passports," said the recently-appointed minister.

Terming Rohingyas "unruly" by nature, he said most Rohingyas, who are migrants from neighbouring Myanmar, were damaging the country's image by their wrongdoings.

The minister said he did not have the actual figure but he thought some 50,000 Rohingyas were now living in different countries holding Bangladeshi passports.

Requesting the workers to be skilled enough before going abroad, Islam said, "Australia wants workers for different jobs like baby-sitting, mowing, and nursing but we can't send people because of the shortage of workers with these skills.

"We could send only 3,000 female workers to Saudi Arabia while the country sought 20,000," said the minister, adding that while giving visas, Saudi Arab sought 25 percent of them to be female workers.

He said training centres would be set up in every upazila so that workers could train there and get better jobs abroad.

Awami League leaders including the city unit president, ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, were present.