Pressure is mounting on the government of Bangladesh for continuation of the Accord as forceful closure of its Dhaka office will benefit no parties -- brands, government, garment makers and workers.
European brands, global rights groups and a group of 190 global investors have renewed their call for extension of the Accord tenure.
A premature closure of Accord operations in Bangladesh would be detrimental to the health and safety of garment workers and to brands that depend on a secure and safe workforce, they said.
The latest call came from Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), one of the garment industry's largest alliances of labour unions and non-governmental organisations, and also the witness signatory to the Accord.
The CCC in a statement issued on last Friday said Bangladeshi inspection bodies did not yet have the capacity to oversee around 1,600 Accord-covered factories.
This would be in addition to the factories already under the government's purview, of which only a little over one-third of all safety renovations were completed, it said.
The Bangladeshi authorities have also not presented any viable alternatives to worker safety training and a worker complaint mechanism offered by the Accord.
"If its Dhaka office is forced closed, the Accord will continue to operate, headquartered at its international office in Amsterdam," the statement said.
As a legally-binding agreement between brands and trade unions, it said, the Accord's mandate remains valid until 2021 and signatory brands cannot withdraw from the programme before having fulfilled all their obligations.
Carrying out its inspection programme from outside Bangladesh would come at a high price, it noted.
The Accord would continue to deliver protections to workers by contracting international engineering firms and without permanent engineers on the ground, however, the Accord would face serious limitations to its ability to monitor and verify remediation progress at Accord-covered factories.
Moreover, the Accord's chief safety inspector would be forced to declare hundreds of poorly performing factories ineligible to sell products to any of the Accord's 192 signatory brands.
In such a situation, brands would lose suppliers, factories would lose buyers, workers would lose jobs and factories would become more unsafe - it will benefit no one: not the brands, not the government, not the factory owners, and least of all the workers, it noted.
"We, therefore, call for a political solution to make a genuine transition based on real readiness criteria and solutions for all of the Accord's vital tasks," the CCC said in the statement.
IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union in a joint statement issued on February 13 said, "With no transparency and no verifiable assurance that an unprecedented level of factory safety achieved by the Accord will be maintained, global brands sourcing from Bangladesh cannot take the risk of a return to conditions that led to the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013."
The Accord has recently proposed a 281-day transition plan to hand over its responsibility to the authority concerned while the government-formed committee pressed for curtailing the timeframe without tagging any condition, industry people said.
The government consistently refused to accept any conditions for the handover of factories, claiming (without presenting any evidence) that the RCC has already met all readiness indicators which were developed by the ILO and agreed by the government, the right groups said in the joint statement.
Both the ILO and the European Commission have repeatedly stated that the RCC is far from being ready to take over the Accord functions.
Nearly 200 international brands and retailers signed the 2018 Accord because there was still no adequate government regulation even five years after Rana Plaza collapse, they added.
Another group of 190 institutional investors representing over US$ 3.0 trillion in assets under management from twelve countries around the world and coordinated by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility again on February 12 wrote to the Bangladesh Prime Minister for Accord's extension until the authority concerned is fully prepared to assume Accord's task.
Expressing grave concerns over lack of progress in discussions with the government and Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) over its operation here in Dhaka, the Accord on last Friday called upon both the parties to work jointly in this regard.
The government allowed a six-month extension until November 30 after its tenure expired in May last. The issue of Accord's extension remained under judicial consideration and the parties are due to appear again before the Appellate Court on February 18.
