Allow self certification by Professionals.

I wish to respond to the several viewpoint
articles that appear in Property times dated february
19th instant.
As a housing developer with 15 years
experience I would like to assure house buyers that
their fears of shoddy workmanship and fictitious
certification by professional engineers and architects
are totally unfounded.To imply that professionals
would compromise their reputation and risking their
rice bowl merely for the sake of expedient
certification is really going a bit too far.In fact ,
to the contrary,most of these professionals are more
conscious of their responsibilty that the local
authorities. In most local authorities, the people who
are given the task of certification are less qualified
than the professional engineers and architects.Not
only do we developers have to grease the palm of the
officers in the local authorities but the whole
process of approval is bogged down in bureacracy.
When approval is required from six or seven
local authorities one can imagine the inordinate delay
in obtaining the certification for the building.It is
through this bureacracy and time consuming delay in
obtaining approval for certification of building that
has contributed to the present state of affairs where
buyers complain of their inability to obtain
certificate of fitness.
For so long we have allowed local
authorities to issue certificate of fitness and sad to
say it has not work out satisfactorily. The
established system of CF issuance is simply not
working and has contributed to the present unnecessary
delay in the issuance of the certificate.It is not
realistic to expedite CF issuance if the procedure
involves going through six or seven departments for
approvals.When one department delay or sits on the
application the whole process remains bogged down.To
allow self-cerification by professional is to
streamline the procedure and at the same time create
an efficient mechanism for the issuance of CF.This
mechanism allows the professionals the freedom to
decide when to issue CF but this freedopm comes with
the added responsibilty of ensuring that certification
is only given when all necessary structures are built
in accordance with specifications and have complied
with building plans. It is time for us to move on and
try a different method.Surely, the new
self-certification method cannot be as bad as the
present one.Let us give the professional engineers and
architects the benfit of doubt and allow them the
opportunity to shoulder the responsibilty of issuing
the certificate of fitness.Let us not be too hasty in
condemning their ability even before giving them a
chance.