North American retailers have brought allegations of unethical engineering practices against three engineering firms, saying they manipulated and tempered building safety reports. The Alliance also alleged that the firms lacked practical knowledge to conduct engineering analysis and retrofitting designs, sources said. The other allegations by Alliance included part-time engineers, misguiding and harassing factory owners by giving false hope, late and faulty detailed engineering assessment (DEA) reports and negotiation with them to avoid retrofitting. The platform of North American apparel brands and buyers has already taken up the matter with the apparel apex bodies such as BGMEA and BKMEA, requesting the associations to inform their member factories so that they do not hire the three firms. The three engineering firms mentioned in Alliance’s letter to BGMEA are Grihayan Rit Consortium, Uttaran Technologies and Space Design and Development. According to the engineers, the detailed analysis was recommended when building owners or manufacturers failed to provide some necessary documents, including building designs during structural inspections. Fire, electrical and structural integrity in some 3,500 garment factories have been assessed by three initiatives-Accord, Alliance and ILO-government joint program. A total of 1,145 factories have been asked to conduct DEA. Asked, vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) Mahmud Hasan Khan admitted that they received complaints from the Alliance. “We have decided to inform our members about the three engineering firms so that they can avoid any unwanted problems related to DEA and other remediation work,” Mr Khan said. Managing director of Grihayan Rit Consortium Md Imrul Kayes denied that his company manipulated reports and resorted to unethical practices. “Since we are not listed with Alliance, the allegations are part of the design to preclude us from doing such work,” he said. He alleged that Alliance forced its member factories to conduct engineering analysis by its nominated six engineering firms. Currently, his company is working for some 35 Accord-listed factories and this group does not have any nominated firms, Mr Kayes added. Sayem U Ahammed, chief executive officer of Uttaran Technologies, however, admitted the wrongs, saying he had scarcity of manpower as some of the engineers left the company, while a few of them opened their own firms. Regarding delay in submitting DEA reports, he said “To prepare DEA report is a new dimension of work for the country and it takes more time than six weeks-a timeframe given by the Alliance.” So far, eight reports have been approved by both Accord and Alliance, while some are at the final stage of approval, he said. The rest of the reports will be submitted within the shortest possible time. Officials of Space Design and Development could not be reached for comments.
