CONTRACTORS RESOLVE TO CHALLENGE CIC REGULATIONS IN COURT

MANZINI – The war between the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and contractors is far from over.

This is because the concerned Swaziland contractors have rejected the CIC draft regulation and intend to hire an attorney to assist them in challenging it. The contractors took this resolution during their meeting which was held at The George Hotel yesterday. The contractors want the lawyer to make sure that their concerns get addressed in the draft regulations before approval. They claimed that information they gathered was to the effect that the CIC has already submitted the draft regulations to the Attorney General’s office and Minister of Public Works and Transport for presentation without their approval. They also want the lawyer to assist them in making sure that the CIC draft regulations was in alignment with the construction Act and the CIC Act itself. Their belief is that the draft regulation was in conflict with the above Acts and it was making it hard for them to operate their businesses in the country. Again, they want the attorney to make sure that the draft regulations were in line with the laws of the country and assess the relationship between the CIC, Swaziland Contractors Association (SCA) and the contractors in general.

There was an argument that CIC draft regulation was not in line with the country’s immigration laws as some foreign contractors were still regarded as foreigners yet they had been doing business in the country for over 20 years. In fact, they said the regulations does not speak to the immigration laws on how many years does a foreign contractor need to be in the country before being regarded as a local. Their main concern was why they were supposed to pay registration fees to CIC and SCA. They argue that they should only subscribe to SCA and should their association that affiliate to CIC not them as individuals. Currently, contractors have no choice but to pay certain amount to CIC in order to get tenders. In their terms of reference, the concerned contractors will give the lawyer 15 working days to work on the matters and make presentation to SCA, members and CIC.

The Swaziland concerned contractor’s Maurice Du-Pont said all they want was that the CIC regulations should make it easy to do business in the country. “Currently, there is too much red tape in the industry,” said Du Pont.
He said they do want a regulatory body as contractors but emphasised that it should make it easy to do business in the country. He said they want to do business with ease. The concerned contractors stressed that in the first place, they were not supposed to be members of CIC as their association was SCA. They said the challenge was that they were already paying registration fees to CIC because they fear to lose tenders. CIC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nhlanhla Dlamini confirmed that the draft regulations had been submitted to the ministry of public works and transport about a week ago. He said this was done for further legal consultations to be undertaken by govt, which would culminate in the presentation of the regulations to Cabinet for approval and then Parliament.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: