Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety has inspected over 34% of the readymade garment factories from where its members source products.
Of total 700 factories targeted to be inspected by July this year, the Alliance of the North American retailers so far inspected some 243.
“We already visited about 243 factories in first phase,” M Rabin, managing director of Alliance, told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
The US retailer Walmart, an Alliance member, checked 200 factories by the help of a third party, he said, adding that “no factory was found disastrous.”
“The factories, of course, varied in the scale of safety arrangement, but none was found potentially dangerous, which could create disasters like the Rana Plaza incident.”
But BGMEA is unaware of the findings, said its vice president Shahidullah Azim who rather criticised some safety standards set by the Alliance. The inspections are being carried out under a five-year project of the group.
Another group namely Accord on Fire and Building Safety will also inspect over 1,700 factories by July this year.
This is a platform 101 European retailers sourcing clothing products from Bangladesh. M Rabin said now the Alliance targets to inspect another 15-30 factories between last week of February and first week of March.
During inspection, priority is being given to the electrical safety as most of the accidents in the country’s clothing factories were fire accidents from electrical short circuits.
Most of the faults the team found during their inspection were also related to fire safety and electrical lines, said Rabin.
Raising workers’ awareness is another important issue, he said, adding that “enhancing workers’ knowledge on fire safety is also a focused area of the Alliance.”
“We will educate workers about how to exit safely during fire so that the casualties reduce to zero,” said the group’s MD.
BGMEA vice president claimed that they had not got the Alliance findings.
He also some standards set by the Alliance are more than the requirements stated in the Bangladesh National Building Code.