Chairman's Message Jan / Feb 2013

Chairman's Message

A very belated welcome to 2013. The first two months of the year seem to somehow have whizzed past at lightning speed!

CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

The industry started off the year somewhat like at the halfway mark in a century sprint.

In mid December 2012, the Government announced that it would keep up its rapid pace of land release to meet the “unrelenting strong demand from home buyer”1, earmarking a total of 32 sites including several that could potentially yield 4,000 private homes in the first half of 2013. The Housing & Development Board (“HDDB”) on 2nd January announced 23,000 Build-to-Order flats to be launched in 20132.

On the same day of the HDB’s announcement, Sri Lanka and Philippines were identified as new sources for the recruitment of foreign construction workers. The Building and Construction Authority (“BCA”) will in the first half of 2013 appoint companies to set up test centres in these countries to help employers diversify its sources of foreign construction worker3. The centres will ensure potential workers go through a rigorous training regime of 12 construction skills including steel reinforcement works, tiling and plastering, lasting between 3 to 6 months, while staying at the training centre. The focus on productivity, skills and work attitudes have been made increasingly stringent since around 2011 and this announcement of new sources of workers and test centres is a real shot in the arm for the industry.

In mid January 2013, the government announced its seventh and most sweeping package of property cooling measures in over 3 years, described by our Deputy Prime Minister Mr Tharman Shanmugarathnam as the most significant to date. The package took effect on 12th January 20134.

SCL(S)

The society has also started the year on an exciting note with its now annual start to the year – seminar on Updates & Development in Construction Law 2013. This year’s event attracted over 150 participants. This was followed on in February with the seminar on Effective Use of Experts by Crown Chambers LLC attended by over 100 participants.

Continuing with SCL(S)’s engaging of its MOU partners; also brought about its first site visit viz. SCL(S) with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (“RICS”) jointly visited the Iskander development project in the Malaysian state of Johor. SCL(S) also was the supporting organisation for the Singapore Institute of Architects (“SIA”)’s seminar on using Expert Determination to resolve Disputes quickly and economically. These events will be reported in the next newsletter.

In the pipeline are plans for the Annual Construction Law Conference in early July, a joint programme with the Singapore Courts on training construction industry practitioners with the use of the Scotts Schedule in avoiding and/or resolving construction disputes, and a joint SCL(S) – Construction Industry and Institution programme to build houses/facilities in Batam, Indonesia for charity.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

From the recent events in the Construction industry, there appears to be a need for a more effective understanding of Construction law and its role in relation to the mechanisms of the industry as well as in addressing disputes that may arise.

So how does the role of SCL(S) align with the above scenario? The SCL(S) objective (as outlined in its Constitution) is:

“… to promote the education, study and research… in the field of construction law and related subjects… for the benefit of the public and the construction industry ”

In line with the above, SCL(S) will focus on educating and empowering both its members and the public with relevant knowledge to deal with the changing needs of the industry based on a sound foundation of Construction law – so as to keep ahead of the game, let’s say!

The team heading the SCL(S) has had over six months now settling in to their roles and several of the initiatives formulated will, in the next six months, start to take shape. The members have also come forward to volunteer their time on various committees and we are happy to have Alex Wong of Hogan Lovells Lee & Lee coming onboard as vice chair of the Website, Research and Resources committee and Uma Menon of Driver Trett and Cia Ai Eng of Drew Napier joining the Publications committee. We hope to see a few more of such individuals joining our committees soon.

Thank You,

Anil Changaroth