INGENIEUR
proceedings in the respective Boards are
empowered by an Act of the Parliament and
Investigating Committees are to be totally
independent and their findings cannot be
changed by any other parties. Furthermore,
Disciplinary Committees are constituted
according to the law to conduct hearings on
professional misconduct. Legal counsels can
accompany respondents in a hearing and all
charges are made known to them for their
defence. Those found guilty of misconduct
have the avenue to appeal to the Appeal
Board if so desired by the respondents. So
why is there a need for another independent
complaints body?
LA has asked for and the submission for
their consent has been made then it is
deemed approved if no response from the
LA officer is forthcoming within 14 days.
The SP can proceed to sign off the relevant
Form G. PSPs encountering problems with
any LA imposing their own rules are to
report to BEM for further action.
4. NEED FOR LAs TO RESUME LIABILITY
There is no need to delve further into this issue
of LA resuming liability as they were never
liable in the first place. Trying to put liability on
the LA is a futile effort and this thought should
be dismissed immediately.
5. URGENT NEED IN SETTING UP OF A
TASK FORCE
6. CONCLUSION
DPSR has not presented a convincing case
to dismantle the CCC regime and revert to
the CFO regime. The few cases presented
by him will still be there with or without CCC.
There may have been some problems in
the implementation of CCC but these have
been resolved through constant reminders,
roadshows, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ),
education, dialogues with authorities and
disciplinary actions. The CCC process is still
under control and has improved over the years
of implementation with better understanding
by all stakeholders on what must be done.
The benefits of having CCC are manifold such
as:-
a. Faster CCC issuance as compared with
CFOs.
b. The matrix of responsibility with the use of
Form Gs has identified and held all parties
in the project accountable for their actions.
c. Fraudulent Engineers, contractors and
tradesmen have been uncovered with the
issuance of Form Gs.
d. There is greater recognition of the role
being played by the PSP (Engineers and
Architects) to assist the nation in moving
forward.
e. The introduction of CCC as self-certification
has helped the nation to improve the ‘ease
of doing business’ ranking by World Bank.
a. There is no need to set up a task force as
there is no need to revert to the CFO regime.
b. DPSR should raise the issue of regulating
individuals on the contractors side with
CIDB. The CIDB Board is well aware of the
constant requests from the professional
side since CCC inception that individually
named contractors who are site agents
and not corporations should be held
accountable for their actions in construction
projects. It is difficult to blacklist a non-
performing contractor company as their
directors can easily close the company
down and open another one to circumvent
any blacklisting.
c. There is also no need for independent
complaints body as the Engineer Board and
the Architect Board are regulatory bodies
constituted by Acts of Parliament. It is their
statutory duty to act independently to hear
any complaints and discipline Engineers or
Architects respectively. DPSR’s assertion
that these disciplinary actions are internal
processes and hence cannot be trusted is
a fallacy. This is unlike a disciplinary staff
proceedings in a company. These disciplinary
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VOL
2019
VOL 78
55 APRIL-JUNE
JUNE 2013