International accord’s expansion in Pakistan harmful for textile industry

ISLAMABAD: International Accord’s expansion to Pakistan was announced during a signatory brand caucus meeting in Amsterdam the other day. International Accord is a for-profit organisation.

Currently, Pakistan does not have a legal body to regulate and monitor all compliance bodies. In the absence of this monitoring, expansion of a for-profit organisation, having a history of fraudulent and illegal factory inspections and assessments, could threaten Pakistan’s textile and garment industry.

Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety was established in 2013 after the Rana Plaza Factory collapse. The country’s National Tripartite Committee (NTC) on the National Tripartite Plan of Action (NTPA), mandated Accord to function under the direction of the internationally recognised workplace safety standards. The committee welcomed Accord to support the implementation of the workplace safety standards, subject to the monitoring and regulation under the NTC.

Accord, however, violated the Bangladesh’s National Tripartite Plan of Action by conducting fraudulent and illegal inspections. It failed to fulfil the legal obligations and arrogated to itself a unilateral and an arbitrary role in implementing safety standards without due oversight of any national authority.

Accord’s illegal and unlawful role was highlighted in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. The evidences clearly identified that Accord terminated factories not based on its own inspections, but grounded on the information received from its counterparts, to ensure a coordinated stance with them. The factories terminated by the Accord were found to be compliant under Bangladesh’s national guidelines. This proves that, Accord’s factory inspections were not only deceitful, they were also fraudulent, in the absence of a tripartite consultation, which only aimed to gain monetary benefits by projecting a biased and an incorrect scenario of the sustainability progress in the country, thus causing grievance in the industry.

Bangladesh’s Transition Monitoring Committee (TMC) limited Accord’s authority to exercise via a transition period of six months, after which it was obliged to transfer all its functions to a national regulatory body. Accord’s credibility and integrity was questioned by several national authorities, companies and brands. This animosity and expulsion threatened the very survival and existence of Accord in the country. The agency has now changed its name to ‘International Accord’ and en route to hunt other countries to gain a foothold. Pakistan, unfortunately, is the top priority.

Unregulated inspections by International Accord can put Pakistan’s textile and garment industry into a zone of serious threat. It will not only blackmail the industry with the fake and deceptive inspections and compliance assessments, the illegal monetary benefits as a result of these illicit inspections will also hinder the sustainability progress of the companies.

Significantly further, the local operational scenarios of small and medium companies are entirely different. For instance, Accord’s unnecessarily stringent and rigorous standards for the industry, designed in the absence of a tripartite consultation, are no way closer to considering the current capacity of SMEs to fulfil them.

The lack of tripartite consultation is also a violation of the relevant UN conventions. Thus, Accord will not only overlook the local nuances, it will also burden the industry with the duplicated, unnecessary and unregulated inspections, which may threaten the very survival of SMEs, their current sustainability, progress and the livelihood of thousands of employees working there. This will be a major threat to both social and environmental sustainability in the SMEs.

Accord has published several reports on the current scenario of compliance to health and safety standards in Pakistan. The data, however, is outdated and false. The analysis focusses majorly on the prevailing health and safety scenarios during Covid pandemic.

It aims to misguide the audience by not highlighting the fact that Pakistan was not the only country to experience the aftermaths of the pandemic. In fact, every industry in every country encountered similar challenges.

The current compliance scenario tells a different story. Pakistan is fulfilling its obligations to the international treaties and the pace has improved to a great extent in the last few years. Pakistan’s textile and garment industry has already aligned its development with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Pakistan is playing a leading role in spreading awareness regarding occupational health and safety standards. Top organisations, including GIZ and WWF as well as the already existing compliance certification schemes have paved the ground to ensure fire and building safety as well as employee wellbeing in the industry.

The already existing compliance to health and safety standards in the country is fulfilling, and the industry does not require Accord’s assessments to take place in an unlawful manner.

In conclusion, Pakistan must realise the dubious intentions of the International Accord behind its expansion in Pakistan. Accord has a long history of arrogating to itself an unlawful and arbitrary role in Bangladesh, the country en route to the path of sustainable development. Pakistan’s case is no different from Bangladesh.