Sixty-four per cent of safety faults in the readymade garment factories that produce cloths for Europe retailers have been corrected till July, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh has said. But most of the factories remained behind schedule in their remediation, the Accord, the platform of the EU brands and retailers, said in a recent progress report. The pace of remediation at Accord-covered factories further increased over the last months and 64 per cent of all safety issues from initial inspections were verified as fixed, the platform said. According to the report, the electrical remediation achieved the highest 80 per cent progress while the structural remediation witnessed merely 40 per cent progress. And 60 per cent fire-related issues were fixed. During the inspection the Accord found 19,790 structural faults in the factories and up to July only 3,854 issues were corrected while out of 33,613 electrical safety risks 23,403 issues were remediated, the report showed.Fifteen factories completed all remediation works from their initial inspections and 34 factories were terminated due to failure to implement the workplace safety measures. The Accord conducted initial inspection in 1,648 factories and out of them 1,402 factories remained behind the schedule in implementing the corrective action plan. More than 100 Accord-appointed engineers conducted between 400 and 500 follow-up inspections each month. After the Rana Plaza building collapse in April 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, EU retailers formed Accord and the initiatives launched inspection programmes in the RMG factories from where its members procure products. During the inspection, 26 factories were closed down due to their structural faults and the buyers’ group provided remediation plan to the others units. Now the Accord inspectors are conducting follow-up and verification inspections in the factories to speed up the remediation works.
