Major safety concerns still remain unresolved in many RMG units

Major life-threatening safety concerns still remain outstanding in many garment factories inspected by the western retailers’ platform — Accord — although 80 per cent of identified safety flaws have so far been fixed.

In its quarterly progress update till October 01, the Accord said inadequate fire detection and alarm systems still remain outstanding in some 946 garment factories out of 1,378 units where the findings have been identified.

“While most factories have submitted fire alarm and fire detection design drawings to the Accord and are in the process of ordering and installing the systems, full installation including final verification of testing and commissioning has been completed at 31.3 per cent of the factories,” said the report published on November 17.

Lockable or collapsible gates have been identified in some 1,393 factories while 72 units are yet to remove evasion hazards during an emergency, its findings showed.

The record said, “94.8 per cent of the factories have eliminated lockable and/or collapsible gates. It skill employees have extra risk of escaping the factory structures in an emergency.”

It also confirmed that 243 out of 1,333 garment factories are but to install egress lighting.

Only 7.0 per cent or one hundred twenty garment factories out of 1,699 have so some distance carried out all the in the beginning identified protection flaws prescribed through the Corrective Action Plan (CAP).

It stated 665 factories have performed ninety per cent or greater than remediation work.

When asked, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Md Siddiqur Rahman stated he is yet to see the Accord report.

Regarding the progress, he claimed that the relaxation of the work would be accomplished within the Accord’s tenure till June 2018.

On the other hand, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety announced that eighty five per cent of required remediation has been completed while 234 gadgets out of 700 inspected garment factories have completed the entire CAP.

The Alliance suspended business relations with 162 factories and the Accord with more than eighty five devices over their failure to comply with safety requirements. Alliance govt director Jim Moriarty at a press convention held remaining week stated the platform will end its activities by using mid of subsequent year.

The Accord, on the other hand, bought six-month conditional extension with the name ‘Transitional Accord’ if a countrywide regulatory body is no longer succesful sufficient of taking charge of the current Accord.

So a long way 49 of Accord’s present signatory manufacturers and shops out of extra than 200 such as H&M, Hugo Boss, C&A, Primark, Inditex and Target signed the 2018 Accord, covering a complete of 1,200 garment factories.