Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has asked its member-factories to provide list of their foreign employees amid concern over the safety of foreign nationals after the terrorist attack in Dhaka in which 28 people, mostly foreigners were killed.
“We have already asked our members to provide details about their foreign employees which will be sent to the law enforcement agencies seeking their security,” Faruque Hassan, Senior Vice-President of BGMEA told The New Nation on Monday.
He said they have been asked for providing the details to the trade body within a short time so that the agencies concerned can ensure security to the foreigners working in the country’s apparel industry.
“The killing of such a large number of foreigners in Dhaka attack has created security concern in the minds of the foreign employees and workers working in the country’s garment sector. We have already
conveyed their concern to the security agencies and they have asked BGMEA to provide the details of the foreign employees to ensure their security,” said Faruque Hassan.
When asked, the BGMEA leader said the attack is yet to cast negative impact on their export business because no case of order cancellation was reported by our members.
He, however, urged the government to take stern action against the masterminds of the attack to restore confidence of the foreign buyers.
About 20,000 foreigners are working in the Bangladesh’s apparel sector including in garment factories, buying houses and liaison offices of buyers and brands, industry insiders said.
They also said many of the foreign employees were illegally staying in Bangladesh even after the expiry of their work-permit.
Earlier, the trade body moved for preparing a database of the foreign workers but it faced snag after non-cooperation from the garment factory owners.
“Many of the garment factory owners did not provide the list of the foreign employees to the BGMEA as work permits of most of their foreign employees have already expired,” an office bearer of the BGMEA told The New Nation yesterday, requesting not to be named.
“We will go tough this time if our members decline to provide such details to BGMEA,” he warned.
BGMEA has about 3,200 member-factories.
When contacted, Abdus Salam, Director General of Industrial Police told The New Nation that his department will take necessary measures after getting details of the foreign workers from BGMEA.
“Security measures have already been enhanced at all the industrial zones of the country to ensure safety of foreign officials and workers working there,” he added.
