Over 2900 Contractors Facing Axe, Says Board

Over 2,900 local and foreign contractors might be axed from the register for failure to comply with professional ethics, the management of Contractors Registration Board (CRB) has said.

According to the Board, the deregistration would start early next year after issuance of a one month final notice to comply with the regulations which ends this month.

Speaking to this paper in an interview, the CRB registrar Eng Boniface Muhegi, said most contractors have failed to settle outstanding fees and fines for this year.

He said Contractors are required to pay annual subscription fee and fines latest December 31 of every calendar year.  The annual subscription fee for local contractors class one to six ranges between 75,000/- to 2.5m/- while foreigners pay between USD6,000 to USD10,000.

“A contractor that fails to pay the dues shall not be permitted to proceed with any construction work forthwith,” he said.
According to the notice issued by the Board, contractors who face deletion are from Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Mwanza, Mbeya, Iringa, Kilimanjaro, Tanga, Singida, Dodoma, Rukwa, Manyara, Morogoro, Coast, Ruvuma, Lindi, Mtwara, Kigoma and Bukoba.

According to Muhegi, the board conducts quarterly reviews of all registered contractors to establish if they operate in accordance with laid down rules, regulations and laws.

“The deleted contractors are those who did not meet registration requirements as stipulated by the law,” he stated.

Some of the necessary requirements include having permanent offices, construction experts and working equipment.

Muhegi said in investigations it was found that the deregistered contractors did not have permanent offices, lacked experts and working gear.

Recently, the CRB registrar was quoted as urging members of the public to help reveal bogus projects by pointing out the contractors behind them.

He said the public had been urged to report to CRB through e-mails and telephone calls fake contractors or any misconduct at construction sites.

He mentioned some of the misconducts as construction sites without signboards and workers working at a site without protective gear.

Muhegi said in a move to empower registered local contractors, the board had come up with strategies aimed at supporting their operations.

He said the other initiative was the establishment of a Contractors Assistance Fund (CAF) in 2002 aimed at supporting local construction engineers to acquire advance payment guarantees.

Currently CRB which was established over 15 years ago has over 11,000 registered contractors in different classes.