The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety has blacklisted three garment factories for counterfeiting the detailed engineering assessment certificates of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. The factories will not qualify to be members of the Alliance as it has been proved that the certificates are fake, said Mesbah Rabin, managing director of the Alliance, a platform of 27 North American retailers.Rabin did not name the factories, but indicated that the names would be disclosed later as the Alliance is still checking the certificatesAfter preliminary inspections into 829 factories, the Alliance engineers instructed them to send samples of pillars of their buildings to Buet, to test the PSI (pounds per square inch) that measures load capacity. Some factories forged their DEA certificates as they scored low in the test at the Buet lab, he added. When the Alliance experts went through all certificates, they saw discrepancies in the scores.“We contacted the Buet experts and verified the certificates. After getting confirmed, we blacklisted those factories,” Rabin told The Daily Star by phone. Factory owners doctored the certificates mainly to reduce the cost of retrofitting the structures. When any factory scores low in the Buet test, it needs to retrofit the structure as per the recommendations of Alliance engineers, Rabin said. “The factory owners should remember that it is a matter of safety. If we allow any factory to run its business with lower safety standards, the dangers remain.” The Alliance has already held a meeting with Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association on the matter. The Alliance suggested factory owners avoid such sneaky measures to save some money, as it may result in a major disaster in the industry again, Rabin said.“I don’t know whether any factory has been blacklisted,” said Siddiqur Rahman, president of BGMEA.However, the Accord and the Alliance have given a list of factories that are still low in remediation, according to Rahman. “We have formed a committee to review progress on the remediation and it will start reviewing the corrective action plan from February 24.” He said the engineers of the Accord and the Alliance have frequently been changing the CAPs in the same factories.As a result, the remediation costs for the factories have been increasing by the day.“We have already urged the Accord and the Alliance to recommend CAPs for once and not to change it frequently,” he said.Earlier, the Alliance members severed relationship with 23 factories, as those were not interested in remediation as per recommendations by the Alliance engineers.
