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Rejoinder, our reply
FROM PAGE 1
Corrective Action Plan (CAP) of the behind-schedule factories by 4 percent, thus improving the number of initial CAP completed factories by 8 percent.
Our reply: The statement refers to the number of factories found by Accord as “behind schedule”, which according to their website, accessed on January 29, 2022 was 1,041. The RSC was emailed for the current number -- the number provided was 1,039, and that was mentioned in the story.
The rejoinder contradicted a statement in the story that said in one and a half years since Accord left Bangladesh, the number of factories left to become fully safe hasn’t changed much. The RSC said they managed to reduce the number of factories yet to complete the “structural remediation” based on an engineering assessment to 12 percent in 21 months”.
Our reply: The RSC is referring to engineering remediation. The story is referring to overall safety.
Referring to a quote from RSC Managing Director Iqbal M Hussain which stated that 1,039 factories were still in the process of becoming “fully safe”, the rejoinder claimed that The Daily Star correspondent did not clearly mention the subject and the argument presented in the story. “We only received few specific questions from the author via email on 29 January, 2022 and responded to those on 31 January, 2022. It would have been brilliant and ethical journalism if an interview with the RSC managing director and acting chief safety officer was organised,” it said.
Our reply: Prior to the email, Hussain was contacted and interviewed over phone, on-record, fully clarifying the intention of writing a story, following which Hussain requested an email. Hussain and the correspondent exchanged a total of six emails over two days, and this additional information from RSC could have been provided at any time during that period, and later. Similarly, clarifications from the correspondent too could have been requested during that period and at any time before publication.
The report pointed out that the pandemic slowed the remediation process. In its rejoinder, the RSC said it must be noted that they could not conduct any inspection due to government restrictions.
Our reply: RSC’s statement does not contradict the story.
The rejoinder countered a fact mentioned in the story about the RSC not being legally binding, saying, “The RSC is working on its own compliance accountability mechanism to ensure a binding agreement by all constituents of the RSC’s ‘Tripartite’ have a compliance mechanism to ensure and enforce remediation.”
Our reply: RSC’s argument does not contradict the statement -- RSC is not legally binding.
The rejoinder countered a statement saying that after Accord left, over 70 factories have still not implemented even 50 percent of the remediation measures recommended by Accord. In its rejoinder, RSC said this depends on the updates received from the factories as well as inspection outcomes.
Our reply: RSC’s statement does not contradict the story.
The RSC contradicted a statement in the story, saying that a handful of the factories are barely getting started with their preliminary inspection, by pointing out that they have increased the capacity to conduct 20–24 factory inspections per month. “As of mid-December 2021, no factory was waiting for an initial inspection.” they said.
Our reply: RSC’s argument does not contradict the statement -- the statement does not say, factories are waiting for a preliminary inspection.
The rejoinder denied that Iqbal M Hussain said 373 of the listed factories are “yet to complete the structural remediation based on an engineering assessment” and 1,241 are yet to have their fire alarm systems verified. It claimed that the figures are true, but that Hussain “never received such a question from the author of the story, so quoting him was not an example of ethical reporting.”
Our reply: RSC’s claim is not true. The Daily Star has in its possession an email from Hussain outlining precisely these figures, dated January 31, 2022, sent at 8:28am.
The rejoinder contradicted a figure in the story that states that “At the time of Accord’s departure, nearly two-thirds of the listed un-remediated factories had implemented over 90 percent of the remediation measures recommended -- but even the minor work left can cause major accidents”. The rejoinder said that since it began operation, the remediation has gone up from 90 to 93 percent, and has corrected the initial findings at 441 factories, “which is an increase of 166 since the RSC took over”.
Our reply: RSC is not countering the statement made in the story.
The rejoinder responded to a section in the story where Zaheen Knitwear’s remediation progress was analysed, by saying, “Their Fire Alarm & Detection System was initially identified on 2 June, 2014. Our report says their action was not approved. Additionally, the factory was in the process of installing the standpipe system and importing the alarm systems and fire doors but as of January 2022, it was yet to be completed”.
Our reply: RSC has simply repeated what is stated in the story and is not contradicting it.
The rejoinder protested the headline of the story by saying “The story mentions about RSC’s observation on the Zaheen Knitwear. However, with such a headline of the story, the reader might get confused”.
Our reply: The headline refers to the overall situation of all the factories, not just Zaheen Knitwear.
The rejoinder countered a figure from the RSC’s annual report saying that during the reporting period, out of the targeted 100 boiler safety inspections, only 10 were completed. “This is an excerpt from our Annual Report. However, the RSC completed follow-up on all the factories under the Boiler Pilot Programme since the completion of external boiler visual inspections at 377 factories,” said the body.
Our reply: We thank RSC for this additional information, but our story clearly mentions the reporting period of the Annual Report.
The rejoinder did not contradict any part of our report. We stand by our report.

Pakistan
FROM PAGE 12
Pakistan’s foreign office, meanwhile, has summoned the acting US charge d’affaires to lodge a strong protest over alleged Washington’s meddling in the internal affairs of the country.
A Pakistani foreign office official confirmed that a “demarche” was handed over to the acting US envoy in Islamabad, adding that Washington was told that the use of such undiplomatic language was unacceptable.