The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Government was yesterday urged to move “with haste” to bring the long-awaited Contractor’s Bill to Parliament,  with one MP it describing it as a “panacea” for many of the industry’s ills.

Renward Wells, an engineer by profession, told Parliament during his 2015-2016 Budget contribution that had the Contractor’s Bill been in place, the Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Sciences Institute (BAMSI) insurance ‘debacle’ would never have taken place.

“The Contractor’s Bill is the last plank, the last part of closing the circle of licensing the entire built environment in this country,” said Mr Wells.

A  2011 draft of the Contractors Bill, which the Bahamian Contractors Association (BCA) has long campaigned for, stipulates that before providing a construction, “a licensed contractor or licensed contracting firm must provide to the client a certificate of insurance, evidencing Contractors All-Risk Insurance and public liability insurance of $1 million”.

Mr Wells added: “The architects are licensed, the engineers are licensed and the next group of persons who must be licensed are the contractors.

“I believe and know that that if the industry was licensed, the BAMSI insurance debacle would not have happened because it would have been a part of the requirements for every licensed contractor to have his or her own insurance, as it is for every architect, as it is for every enginee.”

His comment echo those of the BCA’s current and immediate past presidents, Godfrey Forbes and Stephen Wrinkle, who told Tribune Business earlier this year that taxpayers would not be exposed to almost $3 million in extra costs as a result of the BAMSI fire if the Government had ended the construction industry’s 15-year wait for legislation to regulate it.

They added that the proposed Contractors Bill would prevent companies from being licensed/registered to legally provide construction services if they did not have Contractors All-Risk Insurance (CAR) in place.

Mr Wells added: “There are  positions in the built environment and the construction industry that are licensed. The plumbers have a journeyman license and they have the master plumbers.

“We in the industry know when to give it to the journeyman and when to give it to the master. The electrical industry is licensed. You have single phase and three phase, and we in the industry know when to give to the single phase and the three phase.

“The other part not licensed is the air conditioning contractors, the mould remediating contractors, fire protection and the build works persons, those who build the physical structure.”

   Mr Wells added: “I believe that once we would have licensed these contractors and established a local Contracting Board, that that is a panacea for a lot of what ails us in this country.”

He said the Ministry of Works has some $111 million allocated for capital works, but to ensure that value for money is received, the Government must determine who is capable of undertaking the work and doing it well.

    “With the establishment of a Contractor’s Board, every construction company that seeks to come in would have to get approval from them. We would have economically and politically empowered an entire industry. I look forward to that coming to Parliament so we can vote for it and empower the Bahamian people,” Mr Wells.