Some 1,120 out of 1,610 Accord-listed readymade garment factories remained behind the schedule in remediating safety hazards, according to a quarterly aggregate report of Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh published on Friday.The report showed that the factories inspected under the Accord, a platform of European buyers and retailers, made overall 90 per cent progress in fixing fire, electrical and structural safety faults.As per the statistics of the platform, a total of 231 factories completed 100 per cent remediation while 135 units loosed their business as they failed to implement workplace safety measures provided by the Accord.The buyers’ platform claimed that about 50 per cent of factories still lacked adequate fire detection and alarm system.According to the report, Accord found inadequate fire detection and alarm system in 1,294 factories during the initial inspection and 621 units address the issues up to April this year.The report said that non-compliant exit stair openings were identified in 1,233 factories during initial inspection and the problem still outstanding in 337 units. The platform also claimed that the findings of discrepancy in building plan and drawings still remained in nearly 22 per cent factories while lack of fire separation in hazardous areas in 16 per cent factories.Currently, the total Accord covered RMG factories are 1,674, 0f which 1,610 are inspected and 64 others are recently listed for inspection, the report said.It also showed that out of 1,674 factories, 1,403 are active 59 factories are inactive and 212 factories are no-brand.Accord has so far 274 factories handed over to the government, of them 114 factories were relocated and 109 were closed, the report showed.It said that to support factories, Accord arranged remediation fund and a total of 141 remediation finance requests had so far been received from the factories, of which 52 were resolved.The Accord steering committee also agreed to develop a factory remediation fund to support Accord factories that no longer have any Accord signatory companies as customers and received 31 applications, the report said.After the Rana Plaza building collapse on April 24, 2013, that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garments workers, EU retailers formed the Accord undertaking a five-year plan, which set timeframes and accountability for inspections and training and workers empowerment programmes.At the same time, North American brands and retailers formed Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the platform inspected some 700 factories.The five-year timeframe of Accord will end on May 31, 2018 and the platform which is pressing the government to allow its activities for three more years in Bangladesh.The issue remained sub judice.On the other hand Alliance left Bangladesh on December 31, 2018 year after the ending of its tenure.
