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Remove visa hassles to ensure jobs

Marine graduates urge govt

Staff Correspondent
Unemployed marine academy graduates yesterday urged the government to take necessary steps to remove complexities they face while applying for visas and to stop issuance of fake certificates so as to give international shippers enough confidence to employ Bangladeshis and hence ensure jobs for mariners.
Remittance sent to the country by mariners stood at around Tk 600 crore each year. But Bangladesh was losing out on much more foreign currency in the last couple of years due to the problem of unemployment, they said.
Addressing a press conference organised by graduates of Bangladesh Marine Academy at Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital, they sought the prime minister's intervention in saving the sinking sector and end its existing problems.
Sharing a PowerPoint presentation, graduate Kamrul Hasan said mariners of countries around the world get the facilities of "on arrival" or "Ok to board" visas but those of Bangladesh were deprived of it.
He showed some pictures of visa applications rejected by Singapore, Ecuador, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Of those, Ecuador cited the reason of Bangladesh not having a high commission there and Saudi Arabia accusing Bangladeshi mariners of disembarking and starting to live there illegally, he said.
"Until 2001, Bangladeshi mariners did not require any visa to work in Singapore," Kamrul said, adding that Bangladesh lost its job market in the Middle East in 2006.
Some local agencies are providing fake "Continuous Discharge Certificates", a type of experience logbook of mariners issued under the shipping ministry, which is ruining the country's goodwill, he said.
"As a result many of these countries are turning away from hiring Bangladeshi mariners.
"Besides, the Department of Shipping often gives NOC (No Objection Certificate) in plain paper instead of SID (Seafarers' Identity Document) to mariners.
"The NOC can be forged easily and some fraud mariners could easily cross immigration with these NOCs," he said.
When these fraudsters get caught, foreign agencies stop recruiting mariners, he said.
Another graduate, Imran Wahid Emon, said a mariner must complete one year's internship in a ship on completion of the two-year programme and only four students can do internship in a sea vessel at a time.
"But there are only 38 ships in Bangladesh. A large number of students could not get the opportunity to complete internship," he said, adding, "In 2015, around l,500students will be searching for internships."
Around 400 junior officers who had completed 12 months of service at sea and some 600 fresh graduates were currently unemployed, he added.
"Even two years ago more than 3,400 Bangladeshi mariners worked in ships of different foreign companies but now the number has dropped to 1,200, ” he said.
RR Industries Limited Managing Director Ashraf Ibn Noor, who was a cadet of the fifth batch of Bangladesh Marine Academy, said the government should increase its diplomatic efforts to maintain warm relations with countries engaged in world shipping and to find new job markets.