Most of the readymade garment factory owners did not respond to the call made by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association to provide information about the foreign employees working in their units. Following the murders of two foreign citizens in Dhaka and Rangpur, the BGMEA on October 7 asked its member-factories to provide lists of the foreign employees working in their companies to the trade body by October 15 but as of Tuesday only 47 factories sent the data. There are about 3,200 member-factories of the BGMEA and about 5,000 foreigners are working in the factories. In a circular, the BGMEA asked its members to provide details about their foreign employees saying ‘the law enforcement agency is preparing a list of all foreign officers, employees and workers in Bangladesh to ensure security’. BGMEA vice-president Mahmud Hasan Babu told New Age on Wednesday that they received data on 150 foreign employees from 47 factories. ‘There is no reason for not providing data on foreign employees to the trade body and we will remind the member-factories so that they provide required information within a short time,’ he said. On September 28, Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella was killed in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone Gulshan and Japanese national Kunio Hoshi was murdered on October 3 in Rangpur. Following the killings of two foreigners the law enforcement agencies beefed up security for the foreigners who live in Bangladesh. The highest number of foreign citizens is engaged in the RMG sector in Bangladesh. According to the sector leaders, about 20,000 foreigners are engaged in the RMG sector including in garment factories, buying houses and liaison offices of buyers and brands. ‘If we consider the buying houses and liaison offices of buyers and brands under the RMG sector, the total foreign employees will be 15,000-20,000 in the sector,’ former BGMEA vice-president Shahidullah Azim told New Age. He said that the foreign employees in the RMG factories would not exceed 5,000. Industry insiders said that many of the foreign employees were illegally staying Bangladesh after expiry of their work-permit. ‘Many of the garment factory owners are not interested to provide the list of the foreign employees to the BGMEA to hide them [foreign employees],’ said an official of a garment factory.
