Local contractors, consultants to be ‘graded’ in govt’s new classification system
Contractors and consultants operating in the British Virgin Islands will be “classified and graded” in relation to the services offered as soon as government launches a framework called the Contractors Registration and Classification System (CRCS).
In making the announcement on Tuesday, the implementing body, the Ministry of Finance, did not specify whether these contractors and consultants will be graded on competence.
Director of Projects in the aforesaid ministry, Dr Drexel Glasgow, however, said the soon-to-be-launched CRCS is being implemented so government can ‘become familiar with the capabilities’ as well as the ‘level of services’ offered by contractors and consultants operating in the territory.
He said the system will promote ‘quality of work and value for money’ by identifying ‘suitably-skilled and competent contractors and consultants’ for general and specialised contracts.
Register
To that end, the Projects Unit of the ministry is inviting technical and consultancy services experts to register for the CRCS.
Contractors and subcontractors including heavy equipment operators within the construction and development sectors are also invited to register. They are required to register within four months to “allow for the CRCS to be populated prior to the official launching”.
A media release from the Finance Ministry said the system, when launched, will be used by government agencies to identify a shortlist of contractors and consultants for services that are not issued via an open tender process, as required by the Public Finance Management Regulations.
“Qualifications and information to be submitted include government licences and certificates, company profiles, experience portfolio, financial capability and Curriculum Vitae of management and key staff. The system will be maintained and reassessed periodically in accordance with a rating and grading systems where registrants can be classified,” the Finance Ministry said.
“All contractors and consultants who have worked previously in the public sector and those that have worked in the private sector are all invited to register,” it added.
Meanwhile, contractors and consultants can either collect registration forms from the Projects Unit located on the second floor of Qwomar Building number-two in Road Town or by accessing an electronic registration form by sending a request to [email protected].
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Contractors should be made to provide Bid bonds and Performance bonds, that sorts out which ones are qualified or not. If a contractor can’t obtain a bond, then, that means no bank or insurer has confidence in them.
100% agree. Contractors get away with murder sometimes. The obvious way to control this is to make them bonded. If the Government really wants to improve quality, they should look long and hard at introducing a system for that.
Get our workforce trained properly and working alongside professionals and industry leaders is resilience and sustainable building. Plan the rebuild properly.
Rating system should denote how crooked they are. How much they took from the government. How much they paid to a Minister to get the project. How much over their original price the final cost was.
Lets hope educational credentials are considered requisite prior to any green light operational standards are available.
Yes, it’s understood that most contractors may not have educational training catered to hone their craft. However certificational aptitude should be made available as an option.
Just having the ability to construct,is no longer good enough. Surely, we have all seen the effects of poor construction after Irmaria.
It will be interesting to see what classificational standards will be given to qualified and unqualified builders.
These should be illuminated to the public to ensure competence in the industry.