Fillip for construction industry

by Shanika Sriyananda

Simon Bassunnehe was never entitled to any social security scheme and half of his gross daily earnings went for his evening entertainment after a hectic day and the other half to his wife.

He could not think about financial security for his old age other than his meagre savings insufficient even not enough to cover the medical expenses in an emergency. But from next year the old construction worker's son who follow in his father's footsteps, who is a small scale contractor while being a mason would enjoy the benefits of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), which is going to cover the country's construction labour force for the first time in its history.

Masons, carpenters and helpers at the construction industry are still not entitled for the EPF benefit as they are not working under one master. But thanks to the Ministry of Construction and Engineering Services all these workers will be registered with the Fund from next year.

"Under the 10-year development plan of the Mahinda Chinthanaya a much importance is given to develop the construction field in this country and this is a step under the chinthanaya to look after the country's labour force in the construction sector", Minister of Construction and Engineering Services Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said in an interview with the Sunday Observer about the recent development in the construction industry.

Over 1.1 million people engage in the construction sector but they were never paid EPF and ETF benefits as most of them are working under different contractors and sub contractors from time to time. With no social security cover they have to depend on the daily wages.

According to Minister Senaratne, instead of registering companies, all the employees in all the sectors will be registered individually in these two social security schemes.

"Then an EPF number will be given to each construction worker and all the construction companies, contractors and even head carpenter will have to declare the number of workers under them and their EPF numbers.

Then the mason or a carpenter should inform under whom he or she works to deduct the employer's contribution. Say if the mason works for a day for a particular contractor, the fund will be able to deduct the percentage entitled to him from the contractor for that single day", he said.

Turning a new leaf in the history of construction industry, the newly formed Ministry has already taken the country to the international market, where our engineers, architects, masons, carpenters and other construction workers, construct housing schemes in lands far away.

"We won the contract to build 300 villas in Doha Qatar. The worth of the contract is US $ one billion and the first projects worth of US $ 800 given under the whole contract will be started in January.

The Sri Lankan workers will be sent to complete these 300 villas and this is the first time in Sri Lanka's history that a State corporation has won a foreign contract. The organising of construction sites is under way now and teams of skilled and unskilled workers will be sent in teams soon to commence construction", Minister Senaratne said adding that it was a huge task for him to 'save' the already 'dead' State corporations in the construction sector after he resumed duties as the country's first Minister of Construction.

According to Minister Senaratne, President Mahinda Rajapaksa was very keen in developing the construction sector and several groups including the Chamber of Construction Industries and the National Association of Contractors of Sri Lanka had requested the President to develop the industry which is as a great potential to boom as a very lucrative industry.

"As soon as I resumed duties I took action to implement a National Policy on Construction and an Advisory Board has been formulated to look into this aspect. The Government also wants to bring in two new Acts, the Construction Authority Act and Construction Development Act to regularise the construction industry, which is a long felt need to regulate both the government and private sectors", he said.

Minister Senaratne said that the construction industry needs strong legislation and a clear cut policy to make the industry more viable.

Six State institutions, The State Engineering Corporation (SEC), the Institute for Construction, Training and Development, Department of Buildings, the Fujima PVT Ltd and the Government Factory are under the purview of the Ministry of Construction and by the time the new Ministry was handed over to the Minister Senaratne, he said some institutes were enlisted to privatised or closed down.

"I had a big challenge to make bring these State institutions not into their past glorious era but to make them moving. The other challenge, privatisation is not the solution under the Mahinda Rajapaksa government and I had to make a way out to save these institutions which were really in bad shape", he pointed out.

According to Minister Senaratne these institutions had lots of over-dues and I have improved the working capacity of the SEC, which faced a severe financial crisis and was unable to pay salaries for the employees.

"The SEC and SDC both had a revenue of Rs. two and half billion a year and I am able to increase this upto Rs. 10 billion this year and they had huge sum of overdues and I have started collecting them to solve the financial crisis of these institutions", he said.

Apart from the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Construction is also entrusted with finding an alternative solution to river sand, which is becoming an alarming problem environmentally and also causing a high cost in the construction industry.

The Ministry of Construction will soon complete a project to manufacture sand as an alternative to river sand. Minister Senaratne said that manufactured sand would be high quality compared to river sand and needed less cement in the mixture. "The cement structure will be much stronger and need seven per cent less cement.

The price will also be half the price of natural sand. anufactured sand will meet the country's total sand requirement soon and we are to commence sand manufacturing in the first quarter of next year", he said.

Shortage of cement caused a crisis in the construction industry recently due to price escalation in the world market. Sri Lanka manufactures only 40 per cent of the country's total cement requirement. "Re-opening of the KKS Cement factory was abandoned several times due to terrorists' threats.

The requests made to the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were not fruitful and he ignored the proposal. But President Rajapaksa is keen in re-opening of this factory which will create lots of employment opportunities for the youth in the North and East.

The factory will be re-opened as a joint venture with the Indian company Birla, which is now one of the 500 fortune companies in the world. With that, locally manufactured cement will be sufficient to meet the country's requirement and also creates jobs for the Tamil youth in the Eastern region. By the beginning of the next year we will be starting production.

"The main loss to the Corporation was because they had never completed the projects in time. People did not like to give contracts to the State sector as the projects were getting delayed and they went to the private sector, which completes the projects during the given time.

When I requested the Ministers to give me their contracts they were hesitated. However I convinced them and promised to complete their projects without delays. Now all the projects are moving well and completed in time. I am personally monitoring these projects as I want to minimise delays, which cause loss due to price escalations. We would be able to save money now.

As I visit these sites there is no room for discrepancies", he added.

According to Minister Senaratne, the Ministry received new projects valued at Rs. 7.5 billion. I have set a target of Rs. 10 billion worth projects for this year and my target for the next year is to get projects worth Rs. 20 billion", he said adding that the earlier revenue of the Corporation which stood at Rs. 142 million had gone up to Rs. 400 million.

Under Mahinda Chinthana priority has been given to employ local expertise. Citing the Veheragala project as an example Minister Senaratne said that the project which was estimated to be completed at a cost of Rs. 3150 million has now been completed with local engineers for a Rs. 800 million saving nearly Rs. 2000 million.

"I want to increase the salary scales of our engineers, architects and other technical staff as they are poorly paid compared to those in other countries. That is the main reason for the brain drain in this sector.

I have already spoken with the Chairmen of both Corporations in this regard", he said. Apart from the saving these State Corporations from their financial crisis, the Ministry has taken steps to train the people in the field for skilled jobs as the country is getting ready to tap the foreign job markets and also to get contracts abroad.

According to Minister Senaratne, the Ministry has started a new project to train youth in three districts? Matara, Galle and Kalutara-in collaboration with the Bio France in Finace.

"They will be given six months training in carpentry and masonry and the certificate is an internationally recognised one which helps them to seek jobs abroad. Another project will be commenced soon for the benefit of those who are already in the field to enhance their knowledge with latest techniques in the construction field. They will also be given the knowhow about handling latest equipment", he said.

The Ministry has already discussed with the Buildings Authority in Singapore to supply over 10,000 skilled workers to Singapore. The Singaporian Authority will visit the country to train the workers and select them for a 18 year contract period to work in Singapore. Each worker will be paid a salary of Rs. 57,000 a month.

Building a house of one's own is a distant dream of the poor and also the middle class families. With the aim of fulfilling this dream of the common man, the Ministry targets to construct over 100,000 houses out of the country's total requirement of houses (600,000 houses) with foreign investors.

A Chinese investor has come forward to complete 50,000 houses, a Singapore investor to set up 15,000 houses, and another 15,000 by the Norwegian investor. Discussions are under way with the Korean investors to build 20,000 houses.

"We want to construct these houses for the very poor, middle class, the upper middle class and also the government servants islandwide. Over 15,000 houses will be built in the Eastern province", he added.

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