Some 726 member-factories of apparel sector trade bodies still remained outside the purview of safety inspection. These units will be brought under the inspection soon, officials said. A recent scrutiny by Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) found a total of 1,245 export-oriented readymade garments (RMG) factories have not yet been brought under the inspection process. Of them, 477 are members of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and 249 are members of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA). The inspection of all the member factories, sans these ones, has been completed in October last year. Sources said the factories received utilisation declaration (UD) from BGMEA and BKMEA during last one year, showing that they were directly involved with the export trade. The rest 519 factories are not members of any of the two trade bodies. “We sought the list of factories those receive UD certificates from BGMEA and BKMEA. A good number of factories still remained to be inspected,” Syed Ahmed, Inspector General of DIFE, told the FE Saturday. “The factories remained outside the inspection purview will be inspected under the national initiative and the factory owners will have to pay the inspection cost.” Mr Ahmed said the DIFE will take some more time to finalise the list of export-oriented factories those remained for going through safety assessment. According to DIFE, there are a total of 4,808 export-oriented RMG factories in the country, including 3,780 factories already having done their inspection by Accord and Alliance, and National Action Plan – a joint initiative of the government and ILO. Sources said the factories those are not members of the trade bodies will not make products for Accord and Alliance signatory members and they have already showed their unwillingness to come under the process of fire, electrical and structural integrity assessment. Many of the factories do seasonal business only and keep their units shut for rest of the year while some of them would be closed or relocated, industry insiders said. In some cases, they said, there are a number of garment units in a building and only one of the units was inspected and remediation might not be carried out for the rest of the units. A BGMEA executive confirmed that there were some member factories of BGMEA, which remained to be brought under the inspection process. According to BGMEA statistics, there were a total of 1,618 UD receiving factories in Dhaka, Ashulia, Gazipur and Narayangonj under the trade body. Of the factories, 564 assessed under Accord, 143 under Alliance, 460 under national initiative and 230 factories remained out of inspection. According to the BGMEA, some 221 factories that receive UD certificates from the association are included in both the Accord and Alliance factory lists.
