Inability to pay wages, festival bonus:RMG factory owners fleeing fearing possible outburst ahead of Eid: Govt agrees to release Tk 200 cr as cash incentives
September 7, 2009
Staff Reporter — Some of the garment factory owners have started to flee keeping the factories abandoned failing to pay wages and apprehending possible outburst on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr over payment of festival bonus.
President of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) Fazlul Hoque disclosed it at a press conference yesterday.
He said the number of this type of factories not in a position to pay salary and festival bonus is not small.
“Yes, a good number of factories will be struggling to pay salary and festival bonus before the Eid-ul-Fitr. I cannot guarantee that problem will not arise centring this payments,” Hoque said replying to a question.
“The number of factories which will pay festival bonus will reduce to some extent this year,” he said adding, “We are in a big financial crisis.” Hoque said last week an owner of a knitwear factory fled when the workers were demonstrating demanding payment of wages.
“At one stage we went to the factory, tried to trace him out, but failed. We talked with banker of the factory and arranged Tk 48 lakh as loan and paid wages to workers,” he said.
He, however, did not disclose the name of the factory, which is reportedly in Narayanganj, the knitwear hub of the country.
Hoque protested the information, which he learnt from press reports that apparel industry may be left out from the benefit of stimulus package as the global economic recession has started to go. Those reports were published quoting finance ministry officials.
The BKMEA president along with his committee members met finance minister AMA Muhit yesterday morning to drum up their demand of releasing money from Tk 5000 crore stimulus package, which was allocated in the last fiscal budget.
“The Minister assured us of holding second meeting of recession taskforce by the middle of this month, but I am not sure how much benefit the meeting will bring for the apparel industry,” Hoque said.
He said, “It is impossible to address the present financial problems of the apparel industry announcing a new stimulus package but it has to be tackled with practical steps.”
“The Minister has assured us allocation of some Tk 200 crore to Tk 250 crore in favour of Bangladesh Bank to pay for the apparel factories as cash incentives against export performance. It will be helpful for us to meet the needs before the Eid-ul-Fitr,” the BKMEA president said.
Earlier, while meeting the finance minister Hoque said knitwear worth US$6429.26 million were exported during the fiscal year 2008-09 against the target of US$ 6583.70 million, meaning 2.35 per cent less than the target.
He said the global recession has hit the sector severely. Price cut and order cut are the main reasons of the downward trend of export, he added.
Source: nation.ittefaq.com
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