The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The government is planning to reform construction-related laws so that licensed architects and engineers can approve building works performed by their counterparts, the deputy prime minister has revealed.

Desmond Bannister, in a recent interview with Tribune Business, said the legal amendments permitting third-party inspections that are outsourced to the private sector would alleviate the present burden faced by the Building Control Department’s own inspectors but needed to be balanced with ensuring the consumer is protected at all times.

“When we go back to Parliament we’re looking at amending the Building Regulations Act, which is the legislation that controls that specific aspect,” he said. “I mentioned our plan in terms of amending the legislation, which means that we can allow engineers and architects to approve works and plans of others, so our inspectors don’t have to approve anything.

“We’re going to see how that works, but there has to be some stringent regulation of it. There is the safety of the customer, and we have the professional reputation of those persons. We have to look, as we amend the Building Code, how we consider matters like that. It’s been a challenge for many, many years, but by the same token it’s something we have to approach very carefully. We cannot afford a slip up at the ministry.”

Bahamian architects and engineers have urged the Government over many years to outsource a portion of building and code inspections to licensed, certified professionals in the private sector as a means to access greater expertise and speed up the process, thereby enabling investment projects and others to proceed much more quickly.

Gustavus Ferguson, the Institute of Bahamian Architects (IBA) president, confirmed to this newspaper: “This is one step we’ve been asking for. We can have expedited approvals and different stages of construction being done. If a contractor has finished the foundation stage of a house, a third party inspector can go and do that assessment to ensure compliance with the Code.”

The pair spoke after the deputy prime minister pledged to slash building permit turnaround times by up to 80 percent with the implementation of Building Control’s long-awaited digital approval system.

Addressing a conference to unveil the Ministry of Works’ Electronic Permit Review and Inspection System (EPRIS), Mr Bannister said he would hold US-based contractor, Tyler Technologies, to a public launch date in six months’ time.

With ministry and Building Control officials going so far as to describe digitisation’s arrival as “tear-jerking”, momentous” and “historic”, Mr Bannister promised between a 60-80 percent reduction in turnaround time for building permit applications once the system goes live.

Suggesting that EPRIS will “revolutionise” the process for all construction-related professions, the deputy prime minister said: “The current time that it takes to process a building permit is estimated to be on average 55 to 75 days. That’s approximately eight to ten weeks. That’s a significantly long time when a project needs to move forward and other approvals must be obtained from various ministries and agencies.

“I am pleased to advise that the implementation of the EPRIS programme will allow for all of the agencies involved in the building permit process to review drawings concurrently, which is expected to reduce the processing time of residential applications to 15 days or two weeks, and commercial applications to 30 days or one month on average.”

Mr Bannister said retirement of Building Control’s existing paper-based system will further enhance what he described as a post-COVID “construction boom”, speeding up such projects and driving greater local and foreign direct investment (FDI) activity that has been made even more important by the pandemic’s devastating fall-out.

The move was hailed as long overdue. Quentin Knowles, the Bahamas Society of Engineers president, told Tribune Business it was “about time” the Ministry of Works and its Building Control Department shift to electronic processing of the 1,000-1,500 applications they receive annually, adding: “We live in the 21st century.”