Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a platform of the European brands and retailers, has terminated business relations with four more readymade garment factories in Dhaka due to their failure in implementing workplace safety measures. The retailers’ platform on Tuesday announced that the Accord signatory companies’ cut business relations with Alim Knitwears Ltd, NA Garments, Sidko Limited and Suman Fashion Garments Ltd on February 12 as the factories failed to make adequate Corrective Action Plan implementation progress despite repeated attempts by the Accord staff. With the effect the total number of the terminated supplier factories of the European retailers reached to 13. Earlier, the Accord terminated business relations with nine factories due to their failure to implement workplace safety measures and to refuse to cooperate in the Accord inspections. The factories were inspected for fire, electrical and structural safety by the retailers’ group in 2014 where corrective actions to eliminate safety hazards were identified. According to the Accord statement, after many attempts by the Accord staff Alim Knitwears Ltd failed to make adequate CAP implementation progress, NA Garments and Sidko Limited failed to submit a Detailed Engineering Assessment and Suman Fashion Garments Ltd failed to finalise its CAP. The Accord said the platform was conducting independent, engineering inspections for fire, electrical, and building structural safety at all factories in Bangladesh producing for Accord signatory companies and overseeing the development of Corrective Action Plans by factories and Accord signatories and monitors remediation through follow-up verification visits. ‘If a supplier fails to implement the Accord’s corrective actions and cooperate fully in the Accord’s inspection and related programs, the supplier will receive notice and warning that its business with Accord signatory companies will be terminated if non-compliance persists. If the notice and warning process does not lead to sufficient progress, business with the supplier will be terminated by the Accord signatory companies,’ the statement said. Recently, the Accord provided a list of 553 factories to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association in which the remediation status of the factories are below 40 per cent. The Accord status showed that the remediation progress in Alim Knitwears Ltd, NA Garments, Sidko Limited and Suman Fashion Garments are 18 per cent, zero per cent, eight per cent and zero per cent respectively. After the Rana Plaza building collapse in April 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, EU retailers formed Accord and launched inspection programme in the Bangladeshi RMG factories from where they procure products. The initiative has so far inspected more than 1,600 supplier factories.
