Mentioning that many foreign nationals are working in Bangladesh illegally, TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman revealed the information at a press conference at its Dhanmondi office on Wednesday.
“According to a survey conducted from April 2018 till December 2019, it is found that some 250,000 foreigners (legal and illegal) are working in Bangladesh,” he said.
TIB also urged the government and ministry concerned to make a list of the foreign workers and update it.
“The foreigners are taking money and evading the taxes in collusion with different government officials of the ministries concerned,” Dr Iftekharuzzaman claimed.
The TIB study mentioned that the salaries of foreigners is kept secret. When a foreign CEO gets $10,000-12,000 dollar per month as salary he/she exposes $3-3.6 thousand dollar in document.
“Around 50-70 percent foreigners from 44 countries come in Bangladesh with tourist visa. Later they take jobs. They are now working here in 21 sectors including RMG, Textile, Buying House, Multipurpose Companies, Mobile Phone Company, Medicine service, Restaurants, Electricity and Gas, Engineering, International Contractor,” the research added.
The report mentioned only 9,500 employees are paying tax regularly among at least 2.5 lakh foreigners. The amount of income tax is 30 percent here. Every foreign employee’s monthly average salary is at least $1.5 million dollar.
Quoting Economist Intelligence Unit -2014, TIB said there are 47 percent educated unemployed in Bangladesh, which is the highest among neighboring countries.
“The alarming situation has been created in Bangladesh for not having proper regulations, accountability, transparency and implementation of laws here,” Dr Iftekharuzzaman.
He said the foreigners are coming to Bangladesh lured by industrialisation.
“Some people of our country are taking extra benefit through irregularities and illegal money transformation. So we should ensure accountability and transparency here. It’s very important to enroll foreigners. A cooperation among ministries concerned is also needed,” Iftekharuzzaman said.
He said the organisations have to look for local skilled employees initially for recruitment instead of foreigners.
Earlier, National Board of Revenue (NBR)’s former chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said there are around 10-15 lakh Indians, 5 lakh Sri Lankans and many others working in Bangladesh.