Alliance begins RMG factory assessment

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety started its full-fledged readymade garment (RMG) factory assessment from Wednesday with its nominated seven local engineering companies, said BGMEA President Md Atiqul Islam.
"No individual auditors from the Alliance's buyers and retailers will carry out any garment factory assessment except the seven nominated firms," he told reporters after a view-exchange meeting on 'Sharing of Views with Alliance on Building, Fire and Electrical Safety Assessment of RMG Factories'.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) organised the meeting at its headquarters Thursday while Alliance managing director M Rabin and its board member Welsley, among the factory owners who manufacture apparel products for the Alliance signatories, were present.
The Alliance nominated companies includes Bureau Veritas, Shahidullah Associates, Uttaran, MK, BD Technology and EIMS.
Quoting the Alliance officials, Mr Islam said they also assured that the owners who have already installed safety equipment including fire doors and hydrants according to the individual Alliance members' requirement, will not need to install new ones though they don't have proper certification.
"But those who are yet to install such safety equipment need to set up the certified ones," he added.
There would be no further individual assessment by the buyers in the 222 factories that have already been assessed by some of Alliance members like Walmart and Gap, the BGMEA president said. The Alliance teams would assess those if there is any deviation from the Alliance set of standards.
The teams will only assess the factories but would not provide any directive to these, Mr Islam said. The teams will report their findings to the Alliance and they will later prepare a remediation programme and ask the owners to execute the plan within a time-frame.
The meeting discussed the details of the Alliance standards and its plan and clarified confusion of the factory owners.
The Alliance signatories are sourcing apparel products from about 800 manufacturing units.