SQ Celsius clarification on misusing bond facility

SQ Celsius Limited has sent out a clarification on a report titled "76 apparel firms found abusing bond facility" published in The Business Standard on August 28, 2019.

In its statement, SQ Celsius has claimed that the allegation of misuse of government bond facility by the company, as cited in the TBS report, was not true.

Below is the full text (unedited) of the clarification statement signed by SQ Celsius Limited Chief People Officer Warisul Abid.

"We refer to an article published on The Business Standard's online version of August 28, 2019, where an allegation was made against 76 apparel manufacturers for misusing bond facility. 

With this clarification, we would like to clarify the actual issue that we are having with the Benapole Customs House. 

This issue was neither a case of misusing bond facility nor a matter dodging applicable duties of imported raw materials. 

In fact, it was a mere confusion raised at Benapole Customs House on a specific count of 100% Cotton Melange Yarn that we imported back in year 2018. 

We initiated the procurement of a total of 13,269 KG of 100% BCI Cotton Melange Yarn in two different counts, i.e., NE 32/2 and NE 20/2, to produce and ship Sweaters to one of our valued global customers. 

The styles of the Sweaters were designed on 100% BCI Cotton Melange yarn of two different counts; and they required to be produced in our knitting machines of three different gauges, i.e., 12-gauge, 9-gauge and 7- gauge. 

Accordingly, we issued LC to our customer's nominated Yarn Supplier to ship the materials through Benapole Customs port. 

We released those materials on August 16, 2018, against the Yarn Supplier's Invoice and Bill of Entry; and in all those documents, the yarn composition and the counts were categorically reconfirmed. 

Subsequently, we produced the Sweaters and shipped them to our customer strictly conforming with all parameters, including the yarn composition. 

Now the confusion is: when Benapole Customs House, conducted a separate material test at Bangladesh University of Textiles, the yarn count came as NE 24/2 instead of NE 32/2 and NE 20/2. 

This is basically beyond our knowledge; and there is absolutely no possibility of mismatch in the yarn-counts, since the composition of the yarn was checked and reconfirmed at all stages of this import. 

Moreover, to further re-establish our position on the yarn-counts, we re-tested the sample products at the renowned test lab of Bureau Veritas Bangladesh, as well as at the lab of Bangladesh University of Textiles on September 9, 2019, and September 12, 2019 respectively; and as usual, yarn counts have come as NE 32/2 and NE 20/2 in both the test reports. 

It is also very important to mention that NE 24/2 is a non-conventional yarn-count for sweater manufacturing; and we have never come across and used such yarn-count in our long 26 years of sweater manufacturing business. With that count (i.e., NE 24/2), we couldn't have produced the Sweaters on 7- gauge, 9-gauge and 12-gauge machines, and met the strict specifications of the products. We trust the above information clarify the matter. 

And it becomes evident that the allegation made against us in the news article is not only wrong but also built on inaccurate information. And unfortunately, we have been quoted in the news article as one of the offenders whereas we have not committed any wrongdoings."