Published at: Daily New Age, May 12, 2019
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association has failed to comply with the instruction from DIFE to stop issuing utility declaration to 142 member factories for non-compliance of safety requirements in the last eight months.
Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments on September 20 last year issued a letter to BGMEA and Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association asking them to stop providing UD to the factories as the remediation progress in the units was not satisfactory.
In the letter, DIFE requested the trade bodies to stop issuing UD to the factories for the next three months to expedite remediation in the units inspected under a national initiative.
After one and a half months of the instruction, BGMEA on November 4, 2018 rejected the DIFE direction, saying that it would not be appropriate to stop issuance of UD before January 2019 as there were some export orders under implementation in the factories.
In a letter, BGMEA informed DIFE that the trade body held a meeting with the factory owners on September 27 on the issue where they sought more time to attain the required remediation progress.
There are some export orders in the factories and they will need some more time to complete their shipment, BGMEA said.
‘BGMEA thinks that it would be appropriate to take the decision on discontinuing UD in a further discussion with the factories in January 2019,’ the trade body said in its letter.
The newly elected BGMEA president Rubana Huq on Thursday told New Age that the trade body would comply with the DIFE instruction to suspend UD for errant factories very soon.
‘We are already addressing the issue,’ she said.
According to a BGMEA source, DIFE asked the trade body to stop issuance of UD against 142 RMG factories as the units failed to ensure workplace safety as per the direction of the Remediation Coordination Cell.
Of the 142 factories, 82 are located in Dhaka, Gazipur and Narayanganj zones while 60 units in Chattogram zone.
DIFE officials said that BGMEA had expressed their unwillingness to stop issuing UD to the errant factories showing excuse of national elections, export orders in the factories and possible labour unrest.
‘The issue remains unresolved for a few months and the department will go for next step within a short time as per the direction of the newly appointed inspector general of DIFE,’ Farid Ahmed, joint inspector general of DIFE told New Age on Saturday.
Following the Rana Plaza building collapse in April, 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people, a total of 3,780 garment factories were assessed under three initiatives — European retailers’ platform Accord, North American buyers’ platform Alliance and the government-led and ILO-supported national initiative.
Of the 3,780 garment factories in the country, 1,549 have been inspected under the national initiative. Of them, 531 have been closed, 69 relocated and 193 transferred to Accord and Alliance lists.
The factories that came under the national initiative have completed 32 per cent of the remediation work, while 11 factories have fixed 100 per cent of their safety faults, DIFE officials said.
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