The acting president of Bangladesh’s apex trade group will not be “acting” for much longer.
Not that anyone is supposed to notice, according to a Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, or BGMEA, board member who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the organization, which represents the owners of 4,500 apparel-producing factories.
Instead, SM Mannan Kochi, its current president, will be gradually phased out in favor of vice president Khandoker Rafiqul Islam, who has been serving in Kochi’s stead during the latter’s absence from the country, ostensibly to seek medical treatment for his son.
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But Kochi, who also served as general secretary of the Dhaka City North arm of the Awami League, recently ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s formerly ruling party, has also been caught in the violent backlash against members of the collapsed government, which has been replaced by interim leadership ahead of new elections.
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The student leaders whose initially peaceful protests against quotas in government positions quickly spiraled into a massive uprising for democratic reforms have petitioned — and, in many cases, won — the resignations of high-profile authorities close to Hasina, including Bangladesh’s chief justice and central bank governor. Nearly 30 Awami League members and their family members have also been found dead, sometimes covered with burns, in vandalized and looted homes and businesses, local media reported last week.
Kochi did not respond to a request for comment.
“He’s irrelevant now,” the source said when asked about Kochi’s whereabouts. “The acting president is taking over. In a couple of weeks, no one will remember.”
The fact that Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is helming the caretaker government, met with a BGMEA delegation helmed by Islam on Wednesday is also “an acknowledgment” of the acting president’s role as leader of Bangladesh’s garment industry, an economic tentpole responsible for more than 85 percent of the country’s $55 billion in annual exports, the person said.
But a change in the BGMEA’s top job may not be enough for a vocal subset of the organization’s members who have been clamoring for the resignation of the entire board, the appointment of an interim “non-political” board and a fresh round of elections.
The BGMEA and the previous regime have been “colluding” for more than a decade, said Kalpona Akter, founder and executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity and a former garment worker. Many of Hasina’s ministers were garment factory owners themselves, which frequently blurred the line between business and politics.
Akter said that this “mafia” used all of its power to suppress workers’ concerns about freedom of association, the insufficiency of the minimum wage and factory safety — both before and after the 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza, which killed 1,134 garment workers and injured and maimed thousands more just outside the capital of Dhaka.
“They used the power of the industrial police and local goons from the Awami League to threaten workers, beat workers, to force them to leave factories,” Akter said. “This was very, very common. It was extraordinary how we were treated. We didn’t have the voice to say anything, write a social media post or have a meeting because we’d get a call from BGMEA officials or security intelligence.”
Faisal Samad, the Savartex Group managing director and former BGMEA vice president who led a 100-strong group of members and other individuals to demand the dissolution of its board last week, said he’s not a political person.
Samad, whose Forum faction ran against Kochi’s Sammilito Parishad in March, claimed that vote rigging through the use of fake members was responsible for the latter’s clean sweep of directorship positions. He conceded the election, he said, because of the “political environment of the country,” though he later filed a complaint with the Bangladeshi High Court, which asked the BGMEA to check the voter roll against valid tax IDs.
“But the attorney general of Bangladesh at the time — he’s just resigned — went and stood before the High Court and stayed the case,” Samad said. “So it was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I mean, the attorney general of the country of Bangladesh goes and stands for a case like this. It was very political because he’s a political guy, right?”
His biggest grouse with the current leadership, however, boils down to the sense of direction that he and other members say has been missing since its inauguration in April, denting Bangladesh’s reputation as the world’s second-largest garment exporter after China.
This isn’t mere conjecture, Samad said. Garment exports from the country to the U.S., its number-one destination, have seen a year-over-year decline of 11 percent to $3.4 billion in the first half of 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel. A July benchmarking study from the U.S. Fashion Industry Association also found that only 48 percent of American brands and retailers planned to increase their sourcing from Bangladesh over the next two years, down from 58 percent in 2022.
“For the U.S. market, Bangladesh is not a plus-one country; China plus one is India, not Bangladesh — why is that?” Samad said. “Over the last five months, there’s been no work done for the industry, no strategy. The new president or the board did not even call us to talk. With all our experience, we could have helped him to formulate some good policies for the industry. It can’t be short-term only.”
Other members have accused Kochi of opening fire at student demonstrators in early August. Samad said that he was disappointed that the BGMEA has painted the dissenters as a “mob” that is trying to make a “hostile takeover.” Contrary to a statement from Islam, no fists have been thrown, he added.
Miran Ali, vice president of the BGMEA and managing director of the Bitopi Group and Tarasima Apparels said that the present board plans to serve out the rest of its term.
“The BGMEA received a letter from some members complaining about a number of things, and we will respond to them in due course,” he said. “In the meantime, Khandoker Rafiqul Islam, the acting president, will remain the acting president indefinitely. He is fully in control and has restarted all normal functions of the BGMEA.”
At his meeting with the BGMEA, Yunus told office-holders that they must send a “clear signal” that they won’t “mix business with politics,” the Dhaka Tribune quoted him as saying. “It does not help any cause.”
Mostafiz Uddin, managing director of Denim Expert, encouraged the sector’s leaders to seize control of the narrative through “proactive engagement” that assures international fashion buyers that Bangladesh remains a reliable partner.
“The BGMEA must now play a pivotal role in guiding the industry through these turbulent times,” Uddin said. “Internally, it must foster unity within the industry, addressing any internal conflicts swiftly and privately to present a cohesive front. Externally, the BGMEA should actively engage with global stakeholders, reassuring them of the industry’s stability and advocating for continued support.”
For Sheng Lu, the University of Delaware fashion and apparel studies professor who helped author the benchmarking report, however, the main concern with sourcing from Bangladesh is the high social compliance risk, something that looms especially large with existing and forthcoming mandatory due-diligence legislation, including from the European Union.
“Any further ‘drama’ in Bangladesh could only make U.S. fashion companies even more cautious about sourcing from the country or have to take additional measures to mitigate the sourcing risks,” he said.