In this January 2015 file photo, then acting Labor Minister Adel Fakeih, right, exchange mementos with Bangladesh Minister for Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Khandker Mosharraf Hossain during their meeting in Jeddah. Saudi recruitment businesses say Bangladesh has failed to provide the 500,000 housemaids it had promised.

Local recruitment businesses are complaining that the Bangladesh government has failed to provide the 500,000 housemaids it had promised earlier this year, with only 2,000 employed in the Kingdom over the past six months.

Mishari Al-Thufairi, chairman of the recruitment committee at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said it was clear that the Bangladesh government wants to send men not women to the Kingdom as workers. In addition, he said brokers in Bangladesh are charging SR20,000 in service fees for every worker, three times the amount agreed upon between the Bangladesh and Saudi governments.

Saudi recruitment offices are required by these brokers to pay SR10,000 upfront, and then the rest once visas are approved, he was quoted as saying by a local publication.

Said Mussavi, a former member of the manpower recruitment committee at the Council of Saudi Chambers, said that brokers in Bangladesh were refusing to accept the agreed upon SR7,000 in fees for workers.

He urged the Ministry of Labor to ensure that only approved brokers are allowed to handle recruitment from Bangladesh, and follow official channels. Al-Thufairi said that because of the slow pace of hiring from Bangladesh, Saudi recruiters are looking to employ people from Eritrea. The government of the African country was setting up a project to train workers for the market in the Kingdom.

He said a housemaid from Eritrea would cost SR8,000 in recruitment fees and would arrive within 30 to 45 days. They would draw SR700 pay.

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