Khawaza Main Uddin
The government is yet to begin providing training to garment workers for improving their skill, utilising an endowment fund, four years after it had been pledged to face the challenge of quota-free textile regime.
The selection of a firm for imparting training to workers has become entangled in the complexity of a tender process, although the interim government in 2008 released Tk 20 crore earmarked in the budget for creating the rolling fund, commerce ministry sources said.
An adequate number of firms have not submitted expressions of interest after the Export Promotion Bureau floated the tender for hiring a firm for conducting the training programme with interests of the fund.
In such a context, the commerce ministry, which oversees the bureau’s operations, has planned to convene a meeting with the stakeholders, especially leaders of the apparel sector, to work out an alternative mechanism of utilising the endowment fund.
‘We will shortly invite the stakeholders to take their opinions on how to utilise the fund and help the apparel sector,’ an official concerned told New Age last week.
The fund has been earmarked in the previous budget for the fourth consecutive year following fear of massive job cuts due to impacts of the abolition of the quota Bangladeshi readymade garment exporters had enjoyed under the Multi-Fibre Arrangement from January 2005. It was released in 2008 following a tug of war between finance and commerce ministries.
At present, the country’s apparel sector is rather facing an acute shortage of skilled labour, industry leaders said. To address the problem, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association has been facilitating training programmes at 34 institutions across the country.
‘The government should take assistance from the private sector, especially the BGMEA and the BKMEA, in imparting training to apparel workers so that the sector can employ more skilled workers. We are now facing a shortage of labour in contrast to the fear of job cuts many had in 2004 before the phase-out of the quota,’ said Anwar-Ul-Alam Chowdhury Parvez, the immediate past president of the BGMEA.
He mentioned that the apparel sector needed more intakes of fresh and skilled manpower for a healthy growth of the industry withstanding the effects of the current global financial crisis.
Courtesy of NewAgebd
