Monira Munni
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has planned to hire separate companies to complete garment factory inspection programme under its joint initiative with the Bangladesh government within the stipulated timeframe, sources, involved with the process, said.
The ILO will float a tender in this regard this week, they added.
"We are going to float international tender this week so that interested companies can join the initiative," ILO country director Srinivas Reddy told the FE Thursday.
The purpose of hiring separate companies along with the BUET is to complete the readymade garment (RMG) factory inspection programme within the deadline, he said.
Some of the companies that recently completed factory assessment under the supervision of Accord and Alliance have already shown their interest in this respect, he added.
Two weeks will be needed to complete the formalities, he said adding that fire, electrical and structural safety assessment of garment factories would be completed by January next.
Replying to a question, Mr Reddy said they have already discussed the issue with the Labour Ministry. Earlier, the government and the ILO-led project set December 2014 as the deadline for completing the inspection of garment factories remaining outside the purview of Accord and Alliance assessment programmes.
The Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), under the government-ILO joint programme, is conducting the factory assessment.
Since the inception of the programme on November 15 last, the BUET has so far assessed 410 garment factories till date, sources said.
Structural integrity was assessed in 410 factories located in 300 buildings while fire and electrical safety was examined in 300 factories, they added.
On the other hand, two western retailers and brands groups-Accord and Alliance-have already assessed about 1,700 factories within their set deadline that revealed safety flaws in majority of the factories .
However, sources have attributed the delay in the BUET's completion of the first phase inspection reports to ending disputes between local and foreign experts over inspection standards and resolution of other procedural complexities including renewal of the second phase of inspection.
The BUET team submitted inspection reports of 200 garment factories with grading depending on risk factors to the authority concerned in May and restarted their second phase inspection programme in September.
The BUET inspection reports marked 25 per cent out of the 200 units as 'red' and 'amber' while two units were found risky and later closed by the factory authorities. The rest were marked as 'yellow' and 'green'.
When contacted, Mehedi Ahmed Ansari, a BUET professor, said, there is inconsistency in information including factory location. Contact numbers are found in only 50 per cent of the factories of the list provided to them to assess during the second phase.
Besides, 20 to 25 per cent factories are already assessed either by Accord or Alliance, he said adding they were given a list of 300 factories for second phase inspection.
The number of factories that are not assessed by either Accord or Alliance is about 1,800, according to sources.
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