Majority of the Alliance signatory brands, including Walmart, Gap and Target, on Monday launched a new platform 'Nirapon' mainly to monitor the safety related activities in the local readymade garment (RMG) factories they source apparel items from.
Some 29 apparel companies, mainly based in North America, formed the Alliance in 2013 immediately after the Rana Plaza collapse and assessed structural, fire and electrical integrity in their listed 600 RMG factories to improve workplace safety.
The Alliance winded up its operation on December 31 last year with marking 93 per cent of the identified flaws as corrected while 428 factories have completed the required safety remedial work as per the Alliance prescription.
"Nirapon's mission is to sustain the safety achievements the Bangladesh RMG industry has made so far," its board chair Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury said while announcing the inauguration of the brand-initiated and locally-oriented organisation.
"Nirapon is not in any way a regulating body," he told a press conference at a city hotel.
Nirapon chief executive officer Moushumi Khan and its independent director and managing director of Square Textiles Ltd Tapan Chowdhury, among other brands' representatives from Gap and Walmart, were present there.
Instead it would use a brand-led approach of safety monitoring, oversight and reporting services for the subscribed members based on the laws of Bangladesh to help the member factories build their own self-sustaining culture of safety, Prof. Choudhury said. He said the member factories will perform routine maintenance and safety training and continue to work with an already proven effective helpline.
"While Nirapon builds on the achievements of the Alliance's successful remediation efforts, and our goal of worker safety remains the same, the Nirapon model is fundamentally different," said Ms. Khan.
The Alliance worked directly with the factories to drive remediation and training programmes. However, the Nirapon's role is of oversight and independent verification of safety and training compliance, and reporting these results to its members, she explained. "It cannot and will not suspend factories nor share factory information other than to its members," she noted.
Rather, the factories will now work directly with the third party service providers with guidance from their Nirapon member brands and oversight from Nirapon, she added.
As of today, there are 21-member brands and more than 600 factories under Nirapon, she said.
Terming workers safety 'top priority', Walmart official and also Nirapon board member Marco Reyes said: "From a brand`s perspective, we believe that Bangladesh is a special sourcing country. And each day we are continuing to sustain the safety achievements we've secured thus far."
Safety has been an integral part of their supply chain and they (the brands), along with factory management, Bangladesh government, BGMEA and other stakeholders are working together so that workplace safety can be protected for all.
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