in comparison with the value of even one
life lost from a fraudulent, careless or
unprofessional act. Professionals taking
on the task of CCC issuance cannot take
their responsibility lightly. Fortunately such
incidences are very few and far between
and disciplinary actions meted out have
been largely carried out by the respective
Boards which resulted in only the worst
case situation where the guilty parties were
deregistered.
c. Liability under Housing Development
The penalty for over certification of
progress payments has nothing to do with
the CCC process. The person in charge of
contract administration happens to be the
PSP in the CCC regime, the SP in the CFO
regime could similarly have been in charge.
Hence to attribute this increased liability to
the PSP because of the introduction of the
CCC regime is misplaced.
d. Liability under BEM
The of fenc e s c ommi t te d by the
Engineers are classified broadly under
two categories. One is procedural in
nature, such as submission on time,
forms properly filled, dated and signed
by the right parties. The other category
is fraudulent Engineers, Engineers not
registered to practice, fraudulent acts and
other unethical issues.
The Board has been very gentle on those
committing procedural offences and have
given ample warnings before disciplinary
proceedings were started on recalcitrant
Engineers. Forms wrongly completed
were asked to be replaced with correct
ones without penalty. Those without an
Engineering Consulting Practice (ECP) were
asked to register one immediately. However
with the current Form Gs submissions,
the Board was able to uncover fraudulent
Engineers who were reported to the police,
forged signatories, Engineers practicing
in the wrong disciplines, moonlighting
activities, etc.
The Board received 4,910 CCC submissions
up to January 2018, out of which we
have 350 late submissions, 313 wrong
endorsements, 169 submissions not
through the ECP and 118 submissions
without Form G. So far, we have only 21
cases being investigated. The following
disciplinary actions were already meted out
with four Engineers deregistered, seven
reprimanded, 12 reprimanded and fined,
and one fined, reprimanded and suspended.
On the whole the number of Engineers
being investigated and disciplined for CCC
offences was small in percentage and by
and large their liability on CCC matters have
not gone up exponentially as claimed. The
Board is not aware of any known case of
double jeopardy of the PSP being charged
for the same CCC offence under different
Laws and Regulations by different bodies
as other bodies almost left it entirely for
the Board to discipline the Engineers. The
penalties in terms of fines for CCC offences
are stipulated in the Act, but the fine is
seldom imposed to the maximum sum
depending on the severity of the offence
committed.
2. THE ISSUE OF CIVIL LIABILITY OF PSP
a. Increase in Administrative Role
The CCC documentation process is
merely an enhancement of the contract
administration role that the PSP is
entrusted with to ensure the project is
completed on time and to the required
standards. It is a useful tool to bring all
parties in a project to do the needful and to
document the completion stage in a similar
manner to a QAQC or ISO 9001 process in
order to achieve satisfactory compliance.
Making every party accountable for their
work is a worthwhile effort by the PSP.
b. PSP reliant on Employer for help
The employer should have no qualms
for helping out the PSP to make sure his
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