The Construction Industries Federation (CIF) of Namibia has expressed concern about numerous obstacles to speedy land and housing delivery in the capital. The CIF is worried about cost increases they say are caused by unwarranted delays, which ultimately impact the costs at every stage of a house building project. This in turn escalates the price for the end-user. The CIF further noted that delays and increases are despite the fact that the City of Windhoek has placed the utmost urgency and importance on land and housing delivery.
“Current delays on projects caused by excessive quality assurance measures, and resulting cost increases, cannot be justified if we are acutely aware and sensitive to what is happening around us. Cost increases will not only make the end-product so much more expensive for the house buyer, but will have an impact on the overall productivity on the City of Windhoek (CoW) construction projects. We find that plant and machinery are not optimally engaged when on halt due to frequent testing and related delays,” said Bärbel Kirchner, general manager of the CIF.
In a statement issued yesterday, the CIF added that the interests of stakeholders in the construction industry are very much aligned with the leadership of the CoW, who intend to prioritise land and housing delivery in Windhoek. However, the CoW administration has issued new in-house project specifications to contractors, which are to be applied to all new infrastructure projects in Windhoek. According to the CIF, “major changes include unrealistically high quality assessments, with requirements well beyond the relevant publicly known, well-established and generally enforced standards (SANS and SABS)”.
The CIF remains adamant that the new specifications undermine efforts to ensure swift land delivery and is in direct contrast with the announcement by the new mayor, Sade Gawanas, who indicated that land delivery has the highest priority for the CoW in the near future.
“Whilst the need for land servicing and housing in the capital city is exceptionally high, the demand cannot be optimally met, unlike in other cities and towns in Namibia, where well-established and reliable standards are used,” the CIF statement reads.
The CIF continued that new project specifications lead to excessive long waiting periods between the phases of work until tests are available. They are, therefore, of the opinion that the new specifications are delaying contractors and the growth of Windhoek, which are not aligned with the reality on the ground.
“In order to determine the implications of the new project specifications issued by the CoW, contractors and engineers have done detailed assessments on the new testing requirements, and have found that the cost of all new projects and developments will increase by 40% to 100%. At the same time, the timeline of projects is extended needlessly, leading to double or triple the time required to complete projects,” the CIF cautioned.
In addition to the new project specifications, the CIF stated that other persistent delays are caused by what appears to be the decision-making processes within the CoW, where it seems respective divisions within the authority are not communicating with each other, and instead appear to be working in silos.
“Building and construction works require inspections and related approvals in order for building projects to progress, yet different divisions may have different requirements for the exact same piece of work. The absence of someone overriding conflicting decisions is problematic, and again causes delays”.
Meanwhile, the CIF stated that contractors and other stakeholders in the construction sector are immensely frustrated as any request to address the situation so far is being ignored by the responsible CoW engineers, and as of yet, there is no effective engagement from the CoW to find a solution.
“The implementation of the new project specification system was a one-sided decision without the involvement of contractors and consulting engineers as the main stakeholders involved with implementation,” the CIF lambasted.
The CIF is particularly concerned that the current situation has huge financial implications for stakeholders in the industry.
“Without any transparency and publicly known accountability and responsibility, there also appears to be no one taking ownership of the financial duress that Namibian-owned and operated contractors, engineers and developers experience due to the new in-house project specifications and what appears to be arbitrary decision-making processes by the CoW, and their respective engineers”.
“Any delays not only mean that the urgent delivery of housing is not happening as optimally as it should. Excessive quality assurance measures also mean that costs are increasing tremendously. This needs to be solved as soon as possible so that the housing shortage in our capital city can be effectively addressed immediately,” Kirchner stressed.
The CIF believes a possible solution could be for the CoW to follow existing standards and test frequencies, which are based on the existing SABS standards.
“At the same time, all impediments to speedy delivery – which can be found in all phases before securing a much-needed home for the buyer – need to be analysed and explicitly addressed. This includes negotiations for land between the client and the CoW, the design phase, the tendering phase, the financing phase, the construction phase, the maintenance phase and the sales and marketing phase,” the federation added.