Govt decides to make inspection reports on RMG units public

The government has finally decided to make the reports on assessment of garment factories public following pressure coming from both local and international sources.
The National Tripartite Committee (NTC) at a meeting chaired by labour secretary Mikail Shipar held last Wednesday took the decision to make the inspection reports, prepared by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), public, sources said.
 "The garment factory inspection reports will be uploaded shortly at the DIFE database after formulating the common template," Mr Shipar told the FE.
A common format is needed to make all the inspection reports-Accord, Alliance and BUET-public, he said adding the technical persons in cooperation with the ILO are working in this regard.
Recently the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called upon the government to disclose the findings of ongoing apparel factory safety inspections carried out by the government and other groups both in Bengali and English to help the workers know actual conditions of their workplaces.
However, at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) ministerial meeting in Paris held on June, 26, Karel De Gutch, EU Trade Commissioner in his speech called on the Bangladesh government to accelerate the recruitment of inspectors and publish the inspection results.
 "The recruitment of labour inspectors needs to be accelerated, inspections need to proceed and their results published," he said adding "Over the coming weeks, the European Commission will be working on a full assessment of where we stand today."
BUET has so far assessed 252 garment factories and submitted its first initial report in January. Later in April it handed over the final reports of 200 factories to the DIFE.  But till date no reports have been published.                                                                                                                                                         
Even the factory owners did not get the reports. The DIFE has started distributing the reports among the owners from July 02.
On the other hand, Accord and Alliance have already made some of their assessment reports including corrective action plan public on their respective websites. They are also on the process to upload the more reports in the coming days.
When contacted, the Inspector General of Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) said the summary of assessment reports with the corrective action plan would be available.
 "We will also discuss with the stakeholders including apparel sector and employers' representatives in this regard," he said adding initially the government will make the BUET inspection reports public and later incorporate the assessment reports carried out by western retailers' appointed engineers.
 "All the details of the inspection reports might not be made available at the website but stakeholders concerned would get the details through proper channel," he explained.
Before publishing the reports, the government will also scrutinise the legal aspects, he said.
In July, 2013, Bangladesh, the EU and the ILO agreed to a compact on labour rights and factory safety which was later joined by the US government, to create a publicly accessible database listing all RMG and knitwear factories, as a platform for reporting labour, fire and building safety inspections.
The database would include information of factories and their locations, their owners, the results of inspections regarding complaints of anti-union discrimination and unfair labour practices, fines and sanctions administered as well as remedial actions taken, if any, subject to relevant national legislation.