The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The outsourcing of building inspections “has to come back on the table for a serious conversation” if the Bahamas is to prevent future Hurricane Matthew-type devastation, the Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president believes.

Leonard Sands told Tribune Business that while the Bahamas Building Code was acknowledged as “very robust”, both locally and internationally, Matthew had exposed flaws in its execution and enforcement.

Acknowledging that the Ministry of Works may lack sufficient personnel and other resources to cover the entire Bahamas, Mr Sands urged the Government to again look at outsourcing this work - especially on the Family Islands - to construction industry professionals.

Mr Sands said such representations from the contractors, architects and engineers had been “seriously considered” by the Ministry of Works around eight years ago, but ultimately the proposal “fell by the wayside”.

He added that the BCA now planned to hold a Town Meeting on November 17 at the College of the Bahamas’ (COB) Harry C. Moore Library, beginning at 6.30pm, to revive the ‘inspection outsourcing’ issue.

“I think it has exposed the fact that there appears to be some people not properly adhering to it,” Mr Sands told Tribune Business of Matthew and the Bahamas Building Code.

“We always believed the Code is very robust and stringent, but a lot of properties in the Family Islands seem not to be built as stringently as the code dictates.”

He added: “What we probably can do, and the BCA and other organisations have suggested, is the Government - through the Ministry of Works - can allow professionals like the architects and engineers to do inspections for it on the Family Islands, where it may cost too much to send persons down.

“This is something the architects and engineers have offered to the Ministry of Works, and at one point it was under review.”

Mr Sands told Tribune Business it was noticeable that the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Matthew appeared to be north Andros and the settlements of west Grand Bahama - districts where building inspections were likely to be less frequent in comparison to Nassau and Freeport.

“It seems that in places where there were not so many inspections and inspectors, the damage appears more severe,” Mr Sands said. “Where you have homes with inspections and inspectors, the damage is less severe, it appears.

“That kind of tells the story of where enforcement is. The Code is fine by anyone’s estimate. A lot of persons from the UK and US agree that the Code is very robust, but application can only be ensured with enforcement.”

Concerns that Bahamas Building Code enforcement gets laxer as you travel further away from Nassau, Freeport and Abaco, the main population centres, is nothing new.

Yet the issue has been brought into sharp focus, and highlighted, by the damage inflicted by Hurricanes Joaquin and Matthew - storms the Government estimates as costing it a combined $800 million.

Mr Sands said there were likely many homes constructed in the southern Family Islands without the necessary permits and approvals.

And by the time Ministry of Works inspectors arrived from Nassau, families were often already living in these properties, making it much harder to remedy any defects and bring them up to Code.

As a result, these homes were often untested, and the only way of detecting whether they are up to standard is when a hurricane with the severity of a Joaquin or Matthew scores a direct hit.

“You could probably presume there are some cases where the inspectors do not get to go to inspect in the southern islands, as they cannot get the funds to fly down,” Mr Sands said.

“We at the BCA obviously have a position on making sure we fix this gap, as the cost of construction and recovery is impacted directly when we have these kind of gaps in enforcement. Ultimately, it impacts the Budget of the Bahamas.”

Given the relatively low level of insurance penetration in the Family Islands, and the minimal financial resources possessed by many residents, the cost of rebuilding storm-ravaged homes inevitably falls on the Government and the Bahamian taxpayer.

To prevent this, and ensure construction is executed correctly first time, Mr Sands renewed the calls for the Ministry of Works to outsource inspections to qualified architects, engineers and construction services providers residing in the Family Islands.

“We have identified it in the BCA, and the engineers and architects talked about this 10 years ago,” he added. “It was seriously considered eight years ago under the then-director of works. I know it fell by the wayside.

“The scenario we had on the table needs to come back and happen, because on every island there’s an architect, an engineer or building professional. Many of the young persons who go to school for building and construction design and performance can offer that service as well.

“If we’re looking to the future and how we reduce exposure to future storms, that has to come back on the table for a serious discussion.”