Uganda: Proposed Building Control Bill to rid industry of quacks
Builders and contractors who breach the law shall be subjected to stringent penalties if the government goes ahead to pass the newly proposed Building Control Bill into law.
While luanching the Alps Group offices in Kajjansi, Wakiso District, Eng Abraham Byandala, the minister of Works, said with a draft bill now in place, it was up to the Parliament to debate it and pass it into law.
Alps Group was founded in 2005 as an engineering works and construction firm.
Eng Byandala said the Bill would help to assess the performance of contractors and control unprofessional conduct, which has seen a number of buildings collapse.
The Bill will require that companies employ professionals instead of employing people with little or no knowledge in the construction business.
The building industry has for years struggled to rid itself of unprofessional and quack contractors, blamed for the rot in the construction sector.
Several buildings have collapsed due to unprofessional conduct and have claimed a number of lives and property.
Just last year seven people were injured and several property, including three cars, destroyed when a building under construction but partly occupied by tenants collapsed in Bukoto, a Kampala suburb.
Mr Twaha Ssonko, the Alps managing director asked the government to speedily pass the Bill into law in order to protect the construction industry from quacks.
The approved Bill demands that a person whose negligence causes or results into an accident on a construction site resulting into death of people and destruction of property commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment of up to 12 years.
By Mercy Nalugo, Daily Monitor
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