News Report RMG factories’ structural improvement work is being hampered seriously because of the delay by the European Union (EU) and North American brands and retailers platforms-Alliance for Workers Safety and Accord on Fire and Building Safety-in accepting of the detailed engineering assessment (DEA) reports. After the collapse of the Rana Plaza in 2013, the brand and retailers platform conducted survey on different aspects of safety measures of RMG factories. In course of investigation some structural problems were detected in a large number of factories. Accordingly factory owners were requested to take corrective measures. It was also told that the DEA would require the approval of the two platforms-Alliance and Accord. Following brand and retailer’s platforms request 610 factories under the inspection domain of the Accord and 176 factories under the inspection domain of Alliance submitted the DEA for their approval. But Accord approved only 70 DEA reports and Alliance approved only 27 DEA reports. The RMG owners said that they did not conduct the DEA with the prescribed engineering firms of the Accord and Alliance, which is the reason for non-acceptance of the DEA reports. The RMG factory owners said that the DEA reports were prepared following Bangladesh Building Code, which is the guide line for any structural development in Bangladesh. The Accord and the Alliance should look after whether Bangladesh Building Code was followed in preparing the DEA report. But without following the country’s building code both the platforms insisting on conducting DEA reports with their prescribed engineering firms. The RMG factory owners termed the two platforms behavior as harassment. They questioned about the transparency and accountability of the two platforms activities. It was alleged that owners were asked to re-submit the DEA reports without showing any reasons. The Accord and the Alliance questioned about professional capabilities of engineers who prepared a large number of DEA reports. They maintained that the DEA should be prepared by professional engineers registered in Bangladesh and many of the DEA reports submitted to them were lacking proper engineering skill. The delay in resolving the DEA issue is not only hampering the improvement work, but also hinders the RMG production, factory owners alleged.
