September

Health and Safety HIV/AIDS Initiative.

The Secretariat is sourcing Contractors who wish to be included in this initiative. Contact the office for more details.

The Agm took place on the 4th August at the Ridgweay hotel. Some 50 members took part in the proceedings. Observers and participants included the Botswana Brick Company and a Q& A session with the Regiostrar of the National Council for Construction on various issues that concentrated on Tendering and Registration. T

The Executive Comitte was re-elected for the 2010 -2011 period.

July:

ZRA Cash Accounting:

It has come to our attention that if you require Cash Accounting you should contact ZRA for application. We are trying to revert to the old system where we just submitted a list of Paid up members each quarter. This is no longer sufficient. Unfortunately a number of contractors have fallen foul of the ZRA recently. We will keep all members updated on this situation, but please communicate with ZRA in the meantime.

TENDER BONDS:

Meetings with Intermarket Bank to finalise the MOU and process for the issuance of Tender Bonds for the Paid Up members of the Association have been completed. Full details will be disclosed once the MOU is presented by Intermarket  for signature.

AGM

As per the consitiution we have given notice of the AGM in the media. A copy of the notice along with nominations for the executive committee have been emailed to all members, current and previous.

As a reminder the AGM will take place on:
DATE :Wednesday 4th August 2010

TIME    :15:00hrs

VENUE: Ridgeway Southern Sun.

There will be a cash Bar and snacks avaialble after the AGM.

EIZ ACT:

Please be aware that the new EIZ Act (Engineering Institute of Zambia) was passed throug Parliament on 13th April 2010. You can download a copy of the act if you <click for link> . The contents of the Act seem to indicate that every company engaged in the construction industry MUST register. We have trieed to get clarification from National Council For Construction but have yet to have a response.

June:

The Secretariat was represented at a meeting called by the NCC to look at the 2011 registration process. The NCC received our submissions which included less paper work and less detailed information to make the process less clumsy and repetative. Most of the requests have been included and once finalised we shall ensure that you are aware of the changes well before next years Registration which begins in October.

NCC published a gazette notice in all local media with a list of contractors that had registered prior to Jan 7th 2010 for the same year. The Secretariat made a request  to NCC to qualify such a notice and they did so in the second week of June in all the papers and informed the public that an updated notice would be appearing soon.

May:

ABCEC has been contacting many of the Contractors who have not yet registered for 2010. If you have not been contacted then please let us know as soon as you can. The NCC Late penalty is now 35%.

April:

Renewals for 2010 have slowed down this month but there are still many contractors who have yet to pay their subscriptions for the year. Please note NCC penalties for May will 33%...

The updated list of Contractors is available CLICK Here.

Mashamba  bemoans lack of political will to impact housing market.The Post.

LCC gives construction sector permit boost

http://www.times.co.zm/news/viewnews.cgi?category=11&id=1272607693

By Business Reporter

THE Lusaka City Council (LCC) has introduced a fast track mechanism of approving construction permits to help reduce on delays in commencement of projects, Town Clerk Bonewell Luanga has said.

The method is called Approval in Principle, which allows the developer who meets all conditions to proceed with construction based on the plans submitted while the approval processing was still being reviewed.

Mr Luanga said in Lusaka that the local authority had responded to complaints of inertia and delays in issuance of permission to develop properties, which add to the cost of doing business.

He said the council was faced with a number of challenges, one of them being that of lack of relevant manpower as it had only five building inspectors who were required to cater for the population of Lusaka.

He said the problem of operating under outdated legislation was also a challenge as this was limiting the local authority’s scope of undertaking certain tasks to improve on its performance in service delivery.

Mr Luanga, who was addressing a business forum organised by the Economics Association of Zambia (EAZ) and the Private Sector Development (PSD) reform programme, said sometimes political pressure had retarded developments because the council management would not be able to proceed with decisions without the approval of a full council meeting or appropriate committees.

He cited an example of the fiasco that followed the suspension of council budget approval, when the councils could not function well without full council meetings for about 11 months and approvals of applications for various developments had stalled.

“However, from September last year, we have managed to clear the backlog of the applications and we are now considering current applications for this year. This is because between December last year and February 2010 we had six meetings,” he said.

And LCC director of City Planning Joseph Mukupa said the council had permitted traders using containers to position their containers in the markets, but would not tolerate those that were turning the facilities into restaurants.

Mr Mukupa said the council would not allow those without facilities that meet the requirements to convert the containers into food cafes.

On the National Milling plant on Cairo Road, which had continued operating after concerns that were raised by stakeholders some years back when the company was erecting its silos, he said they were still talking to the firm to move to Chinika area.