BY ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net 

MEMBERS of the construction industry have hailed the prospect of the formation of a Construction Contractor’s Board, saying it is needed and will offer protection to both those in the field and clients.

Skyline Construction Bahamas is in full support of the formation of a board, as well as the Bahamian Contractors Association (BCA) - and Adrian Reid, owner of Adrian Reid Construction, has also now agreed, saying the board is a long time coming. Mr Reid expects more protection for contractors with a board in place to regulate the industry.

“We need somebody to actually speak for us or protect us, because of the an idea we actually don’t have that,” he said. “A lot of times the contractor get a lot of blame, and then sometimes most of the problem that we come up with sometime fall on the architect. When anyone say anything about blaming the contractors, or the contractor do this, or the contractor do that, we have a bigger problem. No one’s seeing that. So we actually have, literally, no one on the contractor’s side.”

Matthew Munroe, principal of Integrity Roofing and Construction Ltd, added: “I guess they are trying to police everything, to make sure everything is being done that is proper practice, which isn’t bad to me, because there’s a lot of things in the industry that’s very chaotic at this time. So I think it does kind of make sense to get people to be a little bit more vigilant in terms of how they do business and, I guess, how they handle clients.”

Shoddy work done by unqualified contractors, is a concern within the industry. Mr Reid said contractors are typically left with the blame or a contractor’s workers may be unqualified, resulting in low quality work.

“I’m a contractor,” he added. “If someone give me a job, right, I can’t be at another job, so I pretty much have workers who can do the job. What happens, most of these contractors, what they do, they get a job, and then they get somebody who have an idea of what’s supposed to be done, and then they leave the job site. No supervision, nothing. And then the consumer or the client ends up getting the bad work because the person doesn’t know what to do.”

It is Mr Reid’s hope that a board can help. Mr Munroe noted that many clients get scammed and that “there’s a lot of dishonesty and distrust”. “So having something like that, I think can kind of maybe help offset a lot of that distrust that people have within the industry,” he added.

Mr Reid also said a board can help crack down of foreign investors bringing in non Bahamian contractors and workers to obtain higher quality work.

“A lot of times, foreign investors, they’re not getting the quality work that they need,” Mr Reid said. “And then that’s why they try to bring in their people to do the work. And that’s what happens. I do a lot of work over in Abaco and Baker’s [Bay]. It’s mostly foreign investors, and they required a higher quality of work.

“I do some work over there. I was there for like, three years. I just finished my contract. But I’m just saying, the type of work that they require, it’s just different from the normal. Even product wise, it’s different. You got to know how to use different stuff and all that. So it’s a lot different. And these are the things, what they’re looking for. And if you can’t do it properly, they’re not going to hire you. So those are some of the issues that really go on.

“There’s a lot underlying, and it really needs something like that [a board] to really regulate it so everybody can have some form of protection. And then even that the clients will have protection, and the contractor will have protection because now, if you don’t know what you’re supposed to do, you can get a fine. So you got to do what you’re supposed to do.”

Mr Reid said once a board is formed, he would like for long wait times with banks to be addressed. He said banks take too long to pay contractors and it leads to delays with projects.

“If the board is there, you could actually put something in place or say something so something can really be done about that,” Mr Reid said. “A lot of times that push you back. Finishing a project, you got to wait on the bank sometimes three, four weeks to get payment after you finish a stage. It’s good that the government is stepping in and doing something about it.”