All RMG factories safe, really?

I saw the news item "Safety in garment factories not as bad as thought" published in Star Business on May 21. I think the survey methodology adopted by BIDS was far from satisfactory. They sent a two-page questionnaire to 6304 member factories of BGMEA and BKMEA. According to their own statement, despite repeated reminders from BGMEA and BKMEA, response to the census was low: only 499 out of 4400 BGMEA members and 257 of the 1904 BKMEA members responded.
It is clear that only those factories that were confident of their safety standards took part in the study and the factories that do not abide by the workplace safety standards, didn't respond. Overwhelming majority of the factories whose safety standards were poor was left out of the study. Random samples from the factories should have been included in the study to give validity to the findings.
It appears the government needed a good report from BIDS to show to the international retailers and they got it. We expect scientifically valid studies from BIDS.
Shahjahan Hafiz
Gulshan, Dhaka