The Tribune

• Home’s defects spotlight inspection, licensing issues

• BCA chief: Did we change Bahamas Building Code?

• And asks: How many more hidden ‘extremes’ exist?

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president yesterday said the deficiencies he identified in a home being built for a major residential developer expose the “serious risk” the sector’s regulatory shortcomings pose to the public.

Leonard Sands told Tribune Business that, besides the continued failure to implement a self-regulatory licensing and certification system for Bahamian contractors, the Ministry of Works has been “outpaced” by construction activity and simply lacks sufficient inspectors and resources to conduct “rigorous” examination of all new buildings.

Warning that these weaknesses, which have been flagged repeatedly over many years, represent a potentially serious threat to the biggest investment Bahamian homeowners will make, he spoke out after making an August 13, 2023, Facebook posting that asked: “When did we change the Bahamas Building Code.”

In it, he flagged several alleged deficiencies with a property under construction which, he subsequently told this newspaper, would likely cause it to “fail” in a hurricane of Category 3 strength or higher if the mistakes are not rectified. Disclosing that the property is being built for a “major residential developer” by a third-party contractor, both of whom he declined to name, he circled the purported construction mistakes he had identified.

“I will not mention the major residential developer that is building these homes,” Mr Sands wrote. “However, I will make a personal call to the chief executive tomorrow and raise these concerns. Their clients deserve better than this.” Responding to calls asking him to explain what was wrong in the photos, he said the property was not being constructed using the “typical building system where columns and beams are required”.

What was absent, he added, was the rebar “extending from the foundations to the belt course” and the filling of all walls with concrete to ensure there were no voids. “It is very clear from these photos that this was not done,” Mr Sands wrote, adding later that the installation of block work on top of the platform was also “not in keeping with best practice”.

Describing the faults he had identified as “extreme”, the BCA chief said he was moved to question “how many more extreme examples are there” due to the lack of contractor licensing and the inability to enforce the Bahamas Building Code throughout the country due to a lack of inspection resources. He had, though, as of yesterday afternoon, not spoken to the development company involved.

“I think the statement I wish to make at this point in time is that the BCA, and any proper contractor, is certainly concerned where we see any indication of failure with a building being constructed that does not meet the Bahamas Building Code,” Mr Sands told Tribune Business. “That building does not meet the minimum threshold for the Building Code and should be addressed immediately.

“It underscores the need for rigorous inspection by the Ministry of Public Works and also the need for licensing of all contractors offering work to the public. What I witnessed there was obviously a contractor that did not know sufficient about constructing that type of building system to build that kind of structure, and they were doing a very poor job of it. They should be stopped from doing further work.

“Nothing on that [home] site met the Bahamas Building Code. It is not satisfactorily in line with the Code in any respect. Nothing structurally is correct, and it should not have been approved to have the roof installed without the structural deficiencies being addressed. It calls into question whether it’s been properly inspected by Ministry of Works officials.”

Turning to the issues raised, Mr Sands added: “It does speak to wider concerns about the overall management of the built environment by the Ministry of Works. We’ve stated for a long time the concern, and it’s been acknowledged by several ministers of public works, that we don’t have the manpower to manage the construction of buildings going on in the country on any given year. It’s an ongoing concern that has to be addressed.

“One solution that has been proposed, and needs to be taken very seriously, is the need for third party inspectors - private engineers, architects and quantity surveyors - to do building inspections and be part of the inspection function at the Ministry of Works.

“That’s been offered for several years now, but the ministry and successive ministers have not been welcoming of it. They should be because they don’t have the bodies required to inspections in New Providence, let alone the Family Islands. We’re long past the point of what should happen. It happens in other jurisdictions, the US and Canada. It’s time for The Bahamas to follow through. We’ve simply outpaced the capacity of the Ministry of Works, and the only ones suffering because of it are the public,” he continued.

“If you don’t have the safeguard of that inspection by ministry officials, how do you know your home is meeting the standard that has been set. That’s the risk, and it’s a serious risk. If you have a 25-30 year mortgage on that building, that’s the assurance for you. The Ministry of Works provides that standard so your building meets that. You shouldn’t be guessing.”

Mr Sands said he and other BCA members often noticed non-compliance with the Bahamas Building Code as they moved around the country, but what he had witnessed and identified in those photos was a much higher “degree of deficiency”.

He added: “Failure to adhere to the Code happens across the landscape of the country very frequently, but not as extreme. This is an extreme example, but how many extreme examples are there because we are not doing inspections everywhere? What if we looked at every structure that was built? How many more instances would we come across?

“It should be concerning to the Ministry of Works, it should be concerning to the public, and it should be concerning to good contractors because their reputation can be called into question because of one contractor. That’s the real danger and damage; that they are impacted by just one contractor.”