Council enforces construction standards
The National Construction Industry Council (NCIC) has moved to enforce standards on 80 construction sites for using unregistered contractors and consultants in both public and private projects.
The 80 also includes 26 found using unauthorised construction materials.
Officials from both NCIC and Malawi Engineering Institution (MEI) said some entities deliberately choose to breach the law and stated that they will now start offering stiffer punishments, especially on the engineering side.
The Directorate of Buildings, on the other hand, has conceded that such challenges are prevalent in local authorities where it is not directly involved in procurement and a policy has been developed to deal with the matter.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, NCIC spokesperson Lyford Gideon said some project owners deliberately ignore the law.
He said projects where stop orders were issued can only resume work after satisfying the requirements of the law.
Said Gideon: “While the 80 were sanctioned for non-compliance such as not having a contractor or consultant, 26 were stopped specifically for using non-sustainable construction materials.
“The 400 are projects visited under the Monitoring and Compliance function of the Council from 1st April [2024] to date. Usually when such projects are stopped the parties are expected to comply and when they do the order is lifted.”
He said out of the 80 sites, 72 were operating with a contractor only and without a consultant while eight had neither a consultant nor contractor.
MEI board chairperson and president Engineer Alfonso Chikuni said they have been sensitising partners nationwide, especially on the need to have a qualified engineer at every construction site.
He said some people continue to deliberately ignore the law, and will henceforth start penalising deviants to bring sanity.
According to the MEI Act (2019) Section 56 (1), a person or body corporate, who or which, without the prior written consent of the institution, employs any person not registered commits an offence and shall be liable, upon conviction, to a fine of K15 million and to imprisonment for seven years.
Meanwhile, director of buildings Architect Sam Ngoma has said most projects that face such challenges are managed at local authority level and not at central level, but a policy has been developed to deal with the problem.
NCIC was established by an Act of Parliament in 1996 with the mandate to regulate, develop and promote the construction industry in Malawi.
