The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president yesterday predicted the time required to complete construction projects could be slashed by between 10-15 percent through outsourcing building inspections.

Leonard Sands told Tribune Business that contractors frequently complain to the BCA that they have “to wait months” sometimes for Ministry of Works inspectors to visit the project site and approve the latest phase that has been completed  - wait that costs the industry and its clients both time and money.

Without an inspector’s sign-off, he explained that financial institutions and other project financiers will not release the next “stage payment” to the contractor, leading to potential cash flow problems that impact payments to both sub-contractors and workers and which can render a development “not commercially viable to complete”.

Mr Sands, hailing the announcement by Clay Sweeting, minister of works and Family Island affairs, that the Building Regulation Act is to be amended to permit licensed, qualified and registered engineers and architects to conduct building inspections, he told this newspaper that it is “impossible” for the ministry’s own inspectors to keep up with the amount of construction development taking place throughout The Bahamas.

Confirming that the BCA teamed with both the Institute of Bahamian Architects (IBA) and Bahamas Society of Engineers (BSE) “some three years ago” to form a committee to push for inspection outsourcing to third-party, private sector professionals, Mr Sands said: “When you recognise the amount of construction going on it’s impossible for the few persons in the inspectorate at the Ministry of Works to carry out all the inspections across the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

“There’s only one inspector attached to Abaco, one inspector attached to Eleuthera. They don’t have inspectors for the southern islands, and they have to get persons to fly there from Nassau to conduct them. Contractors complain to our office all the time that they wait months to get inspectors down to them so that they can get paid by financial institutions.

“They have to wait for the inspection to happen from the Ministry of Works before they can request payment for that stage they have completed. It creates an unfair duration for their payment, which often leads to loss of money and time and, in some instances, it doesn’t turn out to be commercially viable for them to complete the project,” Mr Sands continued.

“This is welcome. It’s very encouraging. We would hope it results in faster construction. It really can only mean faster construction. It could maybe have an impact on 10-15 percent of the overall time of construction. You can lose as much as a week or two weeks waiting on an inspection. That’s on every phase.”

With five inspection phases - foundation, floor, columns, belt and roof -plus electrical, plumbing and the issuance of the occupancy certificate, Mr Sands added: “If you lose a week or two weeks on every stage that could easily be two months. If we can expedite a project that’s a great deal.”

Nick Dean, engineer and principal of Integrated Building Services (IBS), told Tribune Business that the outsourcing of building inspections is “an excellent idea” given the Ministry of Works’ personnel constraints and lack of qualified in-house professionals to keep up with the sheer volume of construction taking place across The Bahamas.

“It does hamper the pace of work on construction sites,” he explained about the lack of timely inspections. “It will allow inspections to be performed by persons highly qualified to do them. It’s good that they finally pulled the trigger.

“It does also put the onus on the cost side on the developer and builder, not on the ministry. It [the inspection] should be a cost of doing business for the developer and shouldn’t be a tax burden for the Bahamian public.”

Calling for the Government to establish a policy for who exactly will be allowed to conduct these building inspections, Mr Dean added: “There are more than enough engineers to see an improvement in the pace of works almost immediately; as soon as they implement that they will see an uptick in completions, especially getting inspectors into some of the remote cays in the Family Islands.

“Getting Ministry of Works personnel to some of these cays can be a challenge, but if you are paying an engineer to go out and do the inspections they are on the plane tomorrow. There are no issues with me on this. My only question is: ‘What took you so long?’ This should have been done years ago.”

Mr Sweeting, on Tuesday, said the new Building Code will introduce independent inspectors, allowing registered architects and engineers from the private sector to assist with inspections. He added that the changes will benefit developers by improving inspection flexibility and turnaround times.

“Amendments to the Building Regulation Act include third party inspectors. A proposed amendment will introduce independent inspectors, registered architects and engineers to assist with inspections,” said Mr Sweeting.

“This will allow for more flexibility in inspection times, including after hours and weekends, benefiting developers and ensuring that construction is done much quickly. This initiative is currently under review by the Attorney General’s Office.”