The government has started work to establish a remediation coordination cell for the country’s readymade garment sector as several international forums raised questions over the capacity of the government authorities responsible for ensuring workplace safety in the sector. Diplomats from the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada and the Netherlands at a recent meeting with senior Bangladeshi government officials expressed their dissatisfaction over the insignificant progress in remediation in the RMG factories which have been inspected under a government-ILO joint initiative.They wanted to know the progress on setting up the promised remediation coordination cell which could bear the responsibility for ensuring factory safety once the timeframe of two platforms of global buyers — Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh and Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety — ends. At the meeting, the government officials promised to establish the RCC by December this year with the assistance of the International Labour Organisation.Labour ministry officials said the modality of the proposed RCC has been prepared and the ministry started work to establish the cell within the timeframe. The labour ministry is going to arrange an inter-ministerial meeting on September 5 as cooperation from Power Division, Fire Service and Civil Defence, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha and Chittagong Development Authority is a must for the RCC. According to the ministry officials, primarily the government and the ILO have estimated a budget of $6 million for the RCC and the initiative will be implemented under the extended ILO programme ‘Improved Working Condition in the RMG Sector’. Following the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, the ILO launched a three-year programme in the RMG sector in October 2013 with $24 million in project cost funded by Canada, the Netherlands and the UK. In February this year, the ILO programme’s advisory board that comprises officials of ILO and labour ministry and representatives from the RMG sector has taken a decision to extend the project up to 2020 with the aim of maintaining quality and sustaining the benefits of the project. Setting up a remediation coordination cell was the key reason of the project extension.The proposal of the extension of the ILO project has been sent to the Economic Relations Division for approval and the donors have agreed to provide proposed fund worth $6 million for the RCC, Syed Ahmed, inspector general of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment, told New Age. He said that the RCC would perform mainly four duties — providing technical assistance to the factory owners, assisting taskforce in approving corrective action plan of the factories which have been inspected under the national initiative, monitoring the implementation of CAP and knowledge sharing. The RCC will work under the DIFE and there will be 20 representatives from Power Division, Fire Service and Civil Defence, RAJUK and CDA in the cell, he said. ‘We will outsource 40 engineers for technical assistance and there will be an advisory body comprising engineers from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology,’ Syed said. Alongside the remediation of the RMG factories inspected under the national initiative, a transition plan will be prepared so that the task currently being performed by the Accord, a EU buyers’ group, and the Alliance, a North American buyers’ platform, can be smoothly transferred to the RCC, he added.
