Corruption nexus behind garment tragedies

An investigative report in the Friday issue of this paper has revealed how safety issues in the garment factories have been seriously compromised by some owners in cahoots with a section of corrupt government officials.
The recent fire tragedy at the Tazreen Fashions in Ahulia itself provides a glaring example of such corruption nexus and its dreadful consequence.
The facts that have come to light from the report are flabbergasting. First, the factory is housed in a structure that has got no permission from the building regulator Rajuk. Worse yet, its design has been found to be faulty. But the question is what were its inspectors doing when this unauthorised eight-storied construction was progressing in that garments belt? Second, the building had no reservoir for water--neither underground, nor overhead. Such mandatory requirement was flouted due to failure of the regulatory bodies.
While a building's emergency exits should lead to the outside, that factory's staircases to the exits have reached the ground floor thereby violating the standards. And as to the infringement of construction rules, the ground floor is not an open space, but one converted into a warehouse clogged with flammable substances like fabrics.
The report detailed how all the relevant building safety codes were flouted one by one and at every step of its construction in connivance with some unscrupulous officials of the regulatory bodies. There have been lapses on the part of Rajuk, fire service and civil defence department, environment department, chief inspector of factories, boiler licensing authority, insurance companies, etc.
And the end result of these cumulative failures of the factory owner and the regulatory bodies was an avoidable tragedy plus the tainted image of garment industry.
The Tazreen garment tragedy should therefore be a lesson enough for the industry and the government to take safety issues in the factories in earnest.
Basically, concrete steps need to be taken to bust the nexus of corruption between the regulatory bodies and the industry.