In several previous stories on this website, whenever we wrote about shipyard workers, most were employed by subcontractors working in the shipyards of Seatrium. This story is different in that the worker was based in Dynamic Shipyard, primarily owned by Hanwha Offshore Engineering Services. And yet, the features of his recruitment journey appear no different from the recruitment journeys of marine engineering workers who ended up in Seatrium’s shipyards.

Salak (name changed) found his first job in Singapore through an agent in Bangladesh in late 2024. The agent was someone named Forid Ahmed who operated out of training centre in Dhaka. Salak didn’t need training, he had previously done his training. Forid Ahmed told him right at the outset that Salak would have to pay 8 lakh Bangladeshi taka (roughly $8,500).

About two weeks after his first contact with Forid Ahmed, a job interview was arranged. Two men, named Ganesh and Pandy flew in from Singapore for the interview. Salak understood them to be either bosses or managers of the company that would later employ him. The topic of recruitment fee was studiously avoided during the interview; instead the conversation was about what his capabilities were as an electrician and whether he had any health issues.

Soon after, the company, which we understand is a subcontractor at the shipyard, applied for a Work Permit for him, and the Ministry of Manpower issued an In-principle Approval letter (IPA). The IPA was dated 26 November 2024. Salak then had to pay Forid Ahmed the eight lakh as agreed. Money was transferred electronically. “My mother keep the receipts,” Salak tells TWC2. Four lakh was transferred to an account which Salak believes to be Forid’s own account. The balance was split among several other accounts. Salak cannot tell us whom these accounts belonged to, only that “Forid tell me the account numbers.”

On 31 December 2024, the day before his flight to Singapore, Salak had to go to see Forid Ahmed one more time to collect his passport and flight ticket. There he was made to sign a document written in English. He was not given any opportunity to read it, nor was he given a copy of it. Having paid eight lakh, it was impossible to refuse to sign. At TWC2, our educated guess is that the document states (falsely) what Salak would later have to say in the video.

Our mention of a “video” should be familiar to readers. We have written about shipyard workers being made to appear in videos prior to departure for Singapore. See these articles: Ready, lights, camera, action! and Learning the lines for showtime. Salak’s experience was similar. He was told to say in the video that he only paid $2,500 for his recruitment – though this detail was different from the other cases where the workers were told to say they paid nothing. Nonetheless, this was far from the truth.

It is easy for main contractors and shipyard operators, and the government too, to dismiss allegations of recruitment fee abuses as isolated aberrations. Bad apples among their subcontractors – that kind of cop-out.

That would be a misleading characterisation of the true situation. Every shipyard worker that TWC2 comes across has a tale of recruitment fee payments. Most have a parallel tale of being forced to participate in the cover-up, such as signing documents they are not allowed to read or being told to lie on video. The problem is a rampant one, across the entire marine engineering industry.

17023