PM vows to boost number of building inspectors

The Jamaican Government has committed to addressing the chronic shortage of building inspectors that hampers oversight and potentially threatens safety standards in a city teeming with construction projects.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness was responding to the crisis in the wake of a Gleaner Editors’ Forum that revealed that the inspector cohort was operating at one-third the optimal capacity to keep pace with the building boom.

“Definitely, this is something we will be pursuing with the relevant ministries in charge of construction and engineering designs in the country,” Holness said in response to questions from The Gleaner at a press conference last Friday at the back end of a tour of the Bernard Lodge development where infrastructural work has started.

“It is not just the inspectors but the necessary equipment that they would need to truly do the examination of the buildings, especially the old buildings, to get the necessary readings for structural integrity,” he added.

The prime minister, however, did not offer a timeline on the deliverable.

Currently, six building inspectors process the average 1,200 construction applications the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation receive annually. That oversight includes site inspections and the monitoring of complaints.

Scrutiny on high-rise residential developments is likely to heighten, here and globally, after last Thursday’s dramatic collapse of a 12-storey oceanfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside. Nine people were confirmed dead up to Sunday. More than 150 are missing.

A 2018 report had cited several infrastructural flaws. The cause of the collapse has not been determined.

Fatigue among building inspectors islandwide is likely to increase with the slew of development and housing solutions on the conveyor belt, including the multibillion-dollar South Coast Highway Improvement Project to the east and conversion of St Catherine farmlands west of Kingston.

“You will be seeing development taking place, and I have been giving hints, and what is coming now, we are going to utilise lands in the possession of the Government, and we are also talking to private landowners about them making investments in housing as well,” Holness said Friday.

The prime minister disclosed that in the next few months, there will be more announcements of housing projects in the east as works continue on the corridor from Harbour View to western St Thomas.

editorial@gleanerjm.com