Minister of Works Desmond Bannister.
By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
Under-staffed regulators cannot catch all building code and planning violators without tip-offs from law-abiding Bahamians, a Cabinet minister has revealed to Tribune Business.
Desmond Bannister, minister of works, told this newspaper in a recent interview that even if some enforcement and building inspections were outsourced to private sector professionals such as engineers there would still be insufficient manpower to police the entire Bahamas.
With the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) Hurricane Dorian review revealing that non-compliance with the Bahamas Building Code has resulted in "significant damage" to buildings during every major hurricane to strike this nation since 2015, Mr Bannister said the Government simply does "not have the necessary number of people" to properly enforce this critical mandate.
"Enforcement is going to be critical. You and I know that," the minister added. "Even in New Providence we have serious problems with code enforcement and persons who have been evading the law.
"What has been helpful to us is many, many neighbourhoods have been calling in and bringing things to our attention that should be brought to our attention. People have been doing all sorts of things. They've been building without permits, they've been doing structures that should not go up, building too close to boundaries and putting up commercial structures in residential areas.
"All of these things are going on," Mr Bannister continued. "If you look at Abaco, the reality is that any of those Family Islands - not just Abaco - it's a challenge to put officers on those islands to enforce the Building Code.
"The ministry does not have the personnel, and until we collaborate as suggested we would with the professionals, we're going to have this challenge. When you have an island like Abaco or the east end of Grand Bahama, the ministry has a limited number of officers. There's no way to get around everywhere and know what people are doing until someone comes and alerts them to it.
"The public service does not have the necessary number of people, and even when we collaborate with the professionals it's going to be a challenge. We have to get kind of tip-offs from informants about people doing things they ought not to be doing."
Mr Bannister's admissions on Building Code enforcement woes come as the construction industry and its related professions await developments on its promised review and upgrade following the $3.4bn worth of damage and losses that Dorian inflicted 12 months ago on Abaco and Grand Bahama.
The minister said Craig Delancey, former Building Control chief and now a deputy director at the Ministry of Works, has been tasked with leading the effort and reporting to him on the progress made before year-end 2020.
"He's doing his research and consulting," Mr Bannister told Tribune Business. "He's now full-time pulling together the research that's going to be required to put this Building Code together. Whatever has to be done, he's doing that full-time.
"It's a huge priority but it has to be done properly. It doesn't make sense just to try and pull something together. We have to do it properly." His comments came after the IDB's recently-released Dorian report affirmed that Building Code enforcement and compliance, rather than its content and strength, remain The Bahamas' primary weakness.
"In the evaluation of the information gathered from housing sector authorities, it was observed that The Bahamas has improved, updated and published a reasonably integrated, comprehensive and rigorous building code that is aligned with the goal of protecting the population and the physical assets of the country," the IDB said.
"However, the magnitude of Hurricane Dorian and subsequent observed damage exposed gaps in the enforcement of existing regulations and the potential need to undertake an extensive building code review.
"Most of the houses assessed with significant signs of damage were not complying with the building code, especially in remote areas. It is worth noting that this situation repeats itself in every assessment conducted since 2015," the multilateral lender added.
"During the assessment mission, government representatives conveyed the challenge of establishing a management/supervisory programme to assure the correct application of the code due the geographical spread of the houses and lack of financial and human resources.
"Correct application of the norms requires appropriate compliance and enforcement mechanisms, which includes training for public officials responsible for approving construction permits, establishment of accountability measures and sensitisation of the population."
The IDB report added that "houses in Treasure Cay and other areas constructed with specific standards, materials and methods presented a significantly more robust and resilient structure" whereas most of the homes destroyed in Marsh Harbour suffered "a total collapse of the wooden roof structure".
"As a rule of thumb less populated, low-income and isolated communities (very common in archipelago countries such as The Bahamas) have challenges in the application of the building code due to lack of quality or quantity of construction contractors, construction supervision and appropriate inspection to guarantee the enforcement of the building code," it said.
Gustavus Ferguson, the Institute of Bahamian Architects (IBA) president, backed by the IDB report by telling this newspaper that enforcement rather than the Building Code itself was the main challenge facing this nation.
Arguing against reviewing the Code simply for the sake of it, he added: "The lack of enforcement creates a lot of the issues we saw in the hurricane. If I were to describe things, I would be generous in saying the agency responsible for enforcement has been under-performing. That's the real issue relating to the Building Code."
Branding the current Code as "stringent", Mr Ferguson said any review needed to focus on ensuring building materials and practices are current rather than be focused on making changes.
Comments
trueBahamian 4 years, 2 months ago
Interesting! You have people staffed in the government whi pass inspection on buildings that have building code violations. So, how about fixing that problem as well instead of pretending that don't exist.
There are some issues that the government would be not know is happening and these should be brought to their attention. However, other than the look the other way inspections, you have well known violations that are just being allowed to happen. Too many games.
Chucky 4 years, 2 months ago
Hitter asked the people to rat out the Jews. “For the good of the nation”
Learn from history people.
One thing to notice; no modern government is looking out for the interests of the average citizen. Not even one.
Don’t do it people.
Shun the government, and all of its policies whenever possible. Most certainly do not participate in reporting your fellow citizens for “fake crime” such as building code violations.
In a free country you could actually build what you want, how you want and when you want. Of course with that freedom would come the responsibility to ensure your actions don’t harm others. But you’ll never have to worry about that, because there is no country on earth where true freedom exists.
Look around. Best thing you can do is stop the government from everything they try to do. Block them, obscure them, misdirect them, do not ever help them.
mrsmith 4 years, 2 months ago
So, sedition then? Got it. You go first.
joeblow 4 years, 2 months ago
... excellent suggestions to deepen social harmony and stability. Learn from history and you will see that anarchy always brings order, right?
Clamshell 4 years, 2 months ago
So you’re OK if a school collapses on the kids because building codes, in your view, are a violation of your “freedom”? There is a difference between freedom and anarchy; I hope you never learn that difference the hard way.
Chucky 4 years, 2 months ago
You’re an idiot. Ever heard of building your own school.
You really had to dredge to come up with that example.
bogart 4 years, 2 months ago
If the NON BAHAMIAN BANK the Inter-American Developing Bank a small bank located by Gas Station by Bay St. Nassau can discover and comment of the structures like wooden structures used to be in Marsh Harbour an destroyed by Dorian Hurricane.....then why don't Bahamian Ministry have to ask public to inform the govt when govt Ministry been doing Census right in same places..????? If there are large clusters of suspect illegal homes, then all the Govt people needs to start with buying computer and looking for common satellite maps and buying services of better satellite maps to locate entire clusters homes which are not to be there..... Ministry should make phone calls to Immigration Ministry on where people live in areas of home clusters. Ministry of Education are aware of students live in illegal home clusters. Ministry Social Services Ministry Babies, Clinics born know addresses where people living etcetc. The greatest IMMEDIATE concern should be the safety of hundreds of lives of humans, childrens, babies, medically unfit, elderly, physically handicapped who are living in the illegal inferior massive amounts of homes ESPECIALLY as Bahamas is in the Hurricane season. And proposals by govt to build better Hurricane Shelters must have capacity to shelter residents, many residents abandoning poor built homes for govt shelters. Govt must also be aware of non survivable surge areas.
mandela 4 years, 2 months ago
These modern-day politicians and governments are becoming so lazy with their ideas and commitment for running a country it's shameful and downright disgraceful, on one hand, we have a Minister saying that the Bahamas will soon not be able to afford to keep our borders safe and repatriate illegal out the country, we have a next Minister saying it is impossible to police building structures being built, it seems like today's politician are only good for making up excuses after excuses, they are so lazy in their thinking it's pitiful. A prime example is the perimeter wall in front of the new Ministry of National Security building JFK drive the wall is about 8 months old and has been repaired about 5-6 times already and today the brand new wall looks like S$$T, the person or persons responsible for giving out this contract and also those responsible for the workmanship should be brought before the courts and sent to jail
tribanon 4 years, 2 months ago
Bannister is the real problem. Things will only get much worse with him as minister of works.
themessenger 4 years, 2 months ago
@Tibanon, tell me in your Opinion, is there any individual living in this country, yourself aside of course, that possesses Ministerial qualities? We would be obliged to see your short list of those you deem qualified. I fully expect to see your name at the top of the list.
BahamasForBahamians 4 years, 2 months ago
This narrative of flipping the question and responsibility from the public official to the average citizen is tired. This is an admission of failure by the Minister and by extension the government he represents. The public isn't hired to the find the solutions and if the minister is unable to effectively do his job a resignation or termination should be in order. It is not the public's job to find solutions and we can still hold an official whose paid through our taxes accountable for a job they signed up for!
conian7 4 years, 2 months ago
It's really sad - the people vote 'for' a party because theoretically they have solutions, or at least better solutions than the other party. Here we have an example why it really doesn't matter because none of them have solutions to issues that affect Bahamians. If there was foreign interests at stake you could rest assured they would figure it out...
Chucky 4 years, 2 months ago
Face it people. Our nation has nobody sufficiently qualified to run a country for the benefit of the masses, for the benefit of their cronies, sure, of course. To rob us blind, yes again!
But nobody with brains enough, not honest enough.
These politicians are worse for our country than a mountain of shit.
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