By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
The Bahamian Contractors Association (BCA) yesterday said it wants to change the Board that will regulate the sector to one that has a majority of industry, as opposed to government, appointees in a bid to eliminate any possibility of political interference.
Godfrey Forbes, the BCA’s president, told Tribune Business he met with Allyson Maynard-Gibson, the Attorney General, last Thursday in a bid to alter the Contractors Board’s composition to one where industry representatives held the majority of the seats.
The Contractors Bill and accompanying regulations, as presently drafted, have the Government appointing six of the 11 representatives, with the industry nominating the rest, and Mr Forbes said the BCA wanted to ‘reverse’ that to eliminate any possibility of regulation being “politicised”.
The BCA chief added that he was also set to meet with Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) general manager, Kevin Basden, next week in a bid to get his approval for electrical contractors to come under - and be regulated - by the Board and proposed legislation.
And, while the BCA had wanted the Board to issue licences to Bahamian contractors only, Mr Forbes told Tribune Business he feared this might not be possible under the strictures of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other trade agreements.
“I had a meeting with the Attorney General herself on Thursday of last week, and the purpose was to address a couple of points in that Bill which we want to have adjusted,” Mr Forbes revealed.
“We want the Board, in a sense, to consist of industry and be mainly contractors, not so much government players.
“We want it to be looked at more as a private industry Board, and at the same time receive the nod of approval from the Government, accepting the Board to deal with all situations that may arise in the construction industry.”
Emphasising that the BCA wanted to ‘strike the right balance’ on Board membership, Mr Forbes said it wanted contractors/industry representatives to have the majority six seats, rather than be consigned to the current minority position.
“We want that reversed,” he explained. “We want the private contractors, in a sense of speaking, to have the edge when it comes to their industry. We don’t want the Board politicised, and the Government saying we want to control the industry this way, and put people in to do that.”
While the BCA had also wanted the Board to issue licences only to Bahamian contractors, Mr Forbes acknowledged “there may be some difficulty in having that done” as the Bahamas was looking to accede to full WTO membership.
But he added that if the Board was arranged as the BCA wanted, Bahamian contractors could still have “the upper hand” over their foreign rivals, since all licence applications would have to be approved by that body.
“They’re the main points we wanted to make the adjustments to,” Mr Forbes added.
As for the meeting with Mr Basden, the BCA president said it was intended to seek his approval for the regulation/licensing of electrical contractors to be transferred from BEC and the Electricity Act to the Contractors Bill and its Board.
Placing electrical contractors under the “ambit” of the Contractors Bill would see “one Board governing every aspect of construction in the country”, Mr Forbes added.
If Mr Basden declined permission, the BCA chief said the Bill would proceed without the electrical contractors.
“I’m still hopeful we will be able to go ahead and get this Bill addressed before Parliament breaks for summer,” Mr Forbes told Tribune Business. “We’re hoping to get it to them before then.”
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