Occupational health and safety stakeholders in the country have said that the recent catastrophic collapse of a high rise building in the city centre and other similar incidents could have been avoided if all the players had harmonised their by-laws and regulations.
Dr Akwilina Kayumba
Experts who spoke to the ‘Sunday News’ during a two week survey said that the current laws and regulations administered by various professional boards, regulators and councils are contradictory, since they cannot create tight checks and balances to ensure total adherence to the construction standards and harmony over their implementation.
In an exclusive interview with this paper, the Ministry of Labour and Employment Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) Chief Executive, Dr Akwilina Kayumba said that there was lack of cooperation among some stakeholders in the construction industry.
“In my opinion, the recent tragedy of the building that collapsed in the city may have been avoided if all stakeholders collaborated and shared information,” she explained. She further said that in the past municipal authorities were believed to insist that all drawings be sent to OSHA for scrutiny, something which is no longer practised.
Other inspectors from other regulatory bodies could also have shared information with OSHA about new construction projects and unregistered construction projects, she added.
“It is difficult for OSHA to enforce safety and health issues in workplaces we are not aware of. Some professional bodies and project owners in the construction industry still think that the issue of safety and health compliance in constructions is in their jurisdiction and not OSHA.
We are grateful that this trend is steadily changing,” she said. Another shortfall was lack of coordination, she said. According to her it calls for concern. “We probably need to form a coordinating body as far as construction industry is concerned with a good network among key stakeholders.”
Commenting on the lack of coordination, the City Council Building and Estate Engineer, Mr Chionda Kawawa, said that lack of harmonisation in the policies, laws and regulations has created loopholes to some unscrupulous people to manipulate the system, leading to tragedies.
“If all the players in the construction industry were speaking with a single voice about ensuring safety, such calamities could be avoided,” he said. He also points out that both public and private institutions lack coordination and uniformity of regulations to enforce standards and safety. “Some professionals in this field are selfish and not ready to share information.
This is a disaster,” he remarked. But he was optimistic that things were taking a new direction since the stakeholders were now discussing the matter. He also points out that the chain of command is blurred, as most often people in such organisations cannot identify who is answerable for what aspect of the compliance pattern.
“It appears that everyone has the authority to do whatever he or she wants without proper guidelines,” he said. Another private engineer said that the construction watchdogs were lacking both human and financial resources to stage regular inspections at the construction sites.
A Source in the Council said that it becomes overwhelmingly difficult to inspect 500 high rise buildings at a time. Every year over 100 permits are issued to the contractors. He said lack of integrated computerised information system in the council was part to blame, which could have helped the Building and Estate Engineers to keep track record of such construction sites.
Further, some politicians are also to blame for their interference, when the council has conducted crackdown and wants to punish the culprits, he added. “Some engineers are guilty of professional negligence, since they are ready to compromise standards or ethics by allowing incompetent contractors to use their licences,” he said.
But he added that this was also due to some business people’s greedy attitude of maximising profit by engaging contractors who are incompetent to avoid hefty fees. Efforts to get comments from the Construction Registration Board (CRB) proved futile as the Registrar was out of the country.
When contacted some of the Board members declined to comment on the issue. But some members of the CRB who spoke on condition of anonymity were of the same opinion that lack of harmonisation and coordination were to blame for most tragedies witnessed in the construction industry.
By JAFFAR MJASIRI, Tanzania Daily News
