The moment cash changed hands between worker’s father and agent
Baitob (not his real name) came to TWC2 in October 2024 over a salary claim. Looking at his figures, there seemed to be many illegal deductions made to his salary. However, this story is not about his salary claim.
While our case volunteer was helping him with this matter, she also asked about the history of how he got this job at a local shipyard. In the course of that story, Baitob revealed that he paid a total of 6 lakh 50,000 Bangladeshi taka (6,50,000 taka) to get this job. In April 2024 when the bulk of this sum was paid, the exchange rate was about 81 taka to a Singapore dollar, so what he paid was equivalent to about S$8,000.
In this story, these are the key parties who will be featured:
- Mr Osman Goni – the first intermediary that Baitob met on his journey to his Singapore job (Baitob refers to him as “agent”);
- Nanyang Stanford – a skills training centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh;
- Mr Uttam Kumar Roy – managing director of Nanyang Stanford;
- Wirodar Engineering (pseudonym) – the employer of Baitob, and a contractor at a shipyard in Singapore;
- Mr Aru – a company representative of Wirodar Engineering who was involved in the hiring of Baitob.
Baitob had never worked abroad before, but he couldn’t find meaningful employment in his home country. In early 2023, when he was 23 years old, he befriended two men from the same village, who had been working in Singapore. They had used the services of Osman Goni to help them find jobs in Singapore, they told Baitob, and so introduced Osman to him.
Based on what Baitob told us, Osman Goni’s home was also in the same village, but he commuted quite regularly to Dhaka and therefore seemed to be a well-connected man.
Fairly early in their conversation, Osman Goni told Baitob that getting a job would cost 6 lakh 50,000 taka. Baitob was told that he needed to attend a skills training centre, and before he could be enrolled, Baitob had to pay one lakh. Baitob and his family handed over the necessary cash.
This initial amount is consistent with what several other shipyard workers have told us. The pattern seems to be that prospective workers had to pay around one lakh (about S$1,100 at today’s exchange rate) before training began. We have seen figures as low as 50,000 taka ($558) and as high as two lakh ($2,230). Generally no further payment is asked until a job offer is confirmed.
What does this imply? This seems to suggest that the actual cost of training is about 50,000 taka ($532) or slightly more. In the one case we have seen where the job broker only asked for this amount, that job broker was a relative of the prospective worker. In all the other cases we have seen, it was one lakh or more, and we reckon that the difference between the training cost and the asked-for one lakh was the introduction fee that the job broker wanted to send the man to a training centre. We believe that in the unusual case where the initial payment was only 50,000 taka, the relative-as-broker waived his initial introduction fee.
Coming back to Baitob’s story, it still took a while for him to be enrolled in a training centre; starting the programme in September 2023 at Nanyang Stanford. This training centre was in Dhaka, so he had to move to the capital city to attend classes.
“Where did you sleep at night?” we ask Baitob.
“In the canteen,” he replies.
He hastens to clarify that it was a sort of multi-purpose room, where trainees had meals and also where they slept.
Baitob’s ID card showing that he had been enrolled in Nanyang Stanford
The training course was supposed to be three months, ending in December, but Baitob said it got “extended”, though we didn’t ask him what an extension meant. It wasn’t all that relevant to the story. We hear about extensions all the time from other workers too. Long delays are a common feature in many workers’ job journeys.
Finally on 26 February 2024, there was a “video call” connecting the training centre with a person named Mr Aru in Singapore, whom he learned was a representative from a potential employer. Because of language difficulties, we are not able to get a clear picture from Baitob of what transpired during the video call, except that it had something to do with “passing a test” – suggesting that it was a webcam observation of him performing a skills test – followed by a series of questions about his qualifications and experience. There was no discussion of terms of employment or payment of more fees.
The big people
In the months while Baitob was at the training centre, he saw Osman Goni quite frequently there. “He had office there,” recalls Baitob, and “he say he [was a] shareholder of the training centre.”
“At that time I believe him, but now I not sure.”
Baitob also came to recognise the man who was the managing director of the centre, “one man, his name Uttam.” When we showed him Uttam Kumar Roy’s photo on the training centre’s website, he confirmed that that was the person he was referring to. During the training course, Baitob did not have much to do with Uttam, but there would be an interesting encounter between the two of them later on.
About a month after the video call with Aru, Osman Goni informed Baitob that Aru’s company, which we refer to here as Wirodar Engineering (pseudonym) would be hiring him. An In-Principle Approval for a Work Permit (IPA) came through to validate this. Osman Goni then told Baitob to go for a medical check-up, kicking off a series of pre-departure formalities. But most important of all, the balance of five lakh 50,000 taka came due.
Once again, this sequence of events is consistent with experiences narrated by several other shipyard workers. After paying the one lakh (sometimes 50,000 taka, sometimes as much as two lakh) and being sent to a training centre, it wasn’t until a firm job offer came through that the balance – almost always a much bigger sum – had to be paid.
If no job materialises, it seems to us that the worker would not need to pay more, underlining our observation that the initial payment was more than enough to cover the actual cost of training.
Baitob’s balance to be paid (five lakh 50,000) is quite typical of shipyard workers. From the way it is demanded only after an IPA has been issued – the timing is also consistent with other workers’ accounts – it can be characterised as a “success fee” for placing the worker in a job.
Paying the ‘success fee’
Baitob and his family then scrambled around to raise the money. They borrowed from family and friends and also took out a one-lakh loan from Brac Bank. Osman Goni insisted that the balance be paid in cash. He would not accept any kind of electronic transfer, emphasises Baitob as he relates events to us, though it would have been more convenient for his family based, as they were, some distance from Dhaka. It was a demand that, frankly, raises suspicions as to what the agent was trying to hide.
Baitob and his family managed to raise the necessary funds, and made the payment in three installments to Osman Goni. In the header picture above, Baitob’s father at right is making the second installment of three lakh to Osman Goni (left foreground). The man in the rear centre is Baitob’s family friend, possibly here as witness. There are stacks of currency notes in the centre. The photo is time-stamped 25 April 2024.
Baitob was then issued with a flight ticket. But the night before he was due to fly (or the morning of the day) he was put in front of a camera in Nanyang Stanford’s offices and told to say into the camera that he had not paid any money. Naturally, having already paid a prince’s ransom, with the risk of derailing his dreams of working in Singapore should he refuse to cooperate, Baitob did as told. He said what he had to say in the video.
“How many trainees were there at Nanyang Stanford while you were doing your training?” we ask Baitob.
“About one hundred.”
“Of these one hundred, how many joined Wirodar Engineering?” we enquire.
“Thirty-eight men. But not all come together. I think four group. My group have ten men,” he clarifies.
Baitob explains that the men each had different agents. His was Osman Goni, but he doesn’t know who the other trainees had as their agents. That said, his understanding was that all the men had to pay for their jobs though the amounts in each case varied. “Some pay total five lakh, some pay six lakh, even eight lakh have.”
In Singapore
Baitob arrived in Singapore on 27 April 2024 and soon after was at work at Tuas shipyard under Wirodar Engineering. From the very beginning, he was unhappy with the way there were all these unexpected deductions from his monthly salary and six months later he was at our door seeking help over the matter.
In one of our many conversations with him, he relates a revealing incident. He saw Uttam again on 31 August 2024, Baitob begins.
“In Singapore?” we ask.
“Yes, in Singapore, my company office.” Baitob says.
This self-confident young man then went up to the managing director and asked him why the amount of six lakh 50,000 taka which he had paid was not declared on the IPA document.
The answer from Uttam was interesting, Baitob tells us. Uttam did not deny that a huge sum of money was involved. As Baitob put it when telling us, “Uttam say ‘I give separate, separate all the money’ ” meaning that the total amount was split among several parties. But wait, Baitob had not paid directly to Uttam, only to Osman Goni. Yet, Uttam used the first person pronoun in reply to Baitob, saying “I give….”. Alternatively, if that was a slip of the tongue, at least he conceded that he knew about the money trail.
In that brief conversation, the role of Osman Goni in the training centre came up too. Uttam denied that Osman Goni was a shareholder. “Uttam say, “I don’t know this Osman’,” was how Baitob recalls the denial. “That is why now I don’t believe Osman Goni was a shareholder like he said.”
Fast forward to November 2024. We’re midway through Baitob’s salary claim process. At the Ministry of Manpower’s TADM unit which arranges mediation sessions between employer and employee to try to reach amicable settlements over claims, Wirodar’s initial stance was a refusal to offer any compromise settlement, firmly denying that any deduction from Baitob’s salary was illegal.
Somewhere along the way, Baitob mentioned that he was being assisted by TWC2, and, on a separate note, that he had paid six lakh 50,000 in agent fees.
About a week later, an unexpected turn of events: An offer of settlement was made to him, at about 60% of his claim amount. Baitob’s claim for illegal deductions was for around $2,500 and the employer offered to settle at $1,500, which Baitob accepted. More importantly, he would be reimbursed his agent fee. When Baitob tells us about this promise, we hold our breath. Is this a trick? Can this be true?
On or around Tuesday 12 November 2024, someone meets his mother in their home village. Baitob thinks it was Osman Goni, or someone sent by Osman Goni. The visitor passes her six lakh 50,000 taka.
Is this really the end of the story? We shall see.
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