RMG Sustainability Council vows to be dynamic amid pandemic ease

The RMG Sustainability Council (RSC), formed in May 2020 as a safety monitoring body for the country's RMG sector but remained inactive due to the Covi-19 crisis, has vowed to be dynamic amid the ease of the pandemic. 

The council made the promise at its board meeting at a capital hotel on Saturday, in which its stakeholders were present.

The RSC, comprising factory-owners, foreign buyers and workers, was established as the legacy of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh – a platform of mostly western buyers which worked to build a safe and healthy RMG industry in the country until 2020, since the much-talked-about Rana Plaza collapse in 2013. 

"The Covid-19 crisis greatly interrupted the activities of the RSC which was formed at the beginning of the pandemic. Now, we have discussed how we can make it dynamic," said Babul Akter, general-secretary of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation.

"We also talked about increasing participation of suppliers for raising funds, settling the claims fast and ensuring payments of the workers who lost their jobs due to factory closure on safety grounds," he, also the director of the RSC, told The Business Standard. 

"We agreed to make the RSC proactive in settling the claims and ensuring accountability and transparency there," added Babul Akter.

"We discussed how to increase the remediation works and certification to the factories in the meeting," another director Miran Ali told TBS.

Mentioning that the discussion was fruitful, he, also vice-president of the BGMEA, said all the 18 directors were present at the event. 

The participants said the RSC vowed to be an independent and responsible agency with its increased activities to make world-class and sustainable workplaces in the RMG industry.

Ensuring structural, electrical, fire and life safety and boiler safety inspections would be its key works. 

RSC Managing Director Iqbal M Hussain was present at the event. 

Currently, about half of the export-oriented RMG facilities in the country, some 1,700 factories, are registered with the RSC. Most of them came from the Accord.