Addressing market failure in the construction industry

Addressing market failure in the construction industry

29-July-2016




The Fair Trading Commission (FTC) has initiated a research aimed at identifying the lapse in the construction industry in Seychelles that can possibly lead to market failures.
This will enable the commission along with other authorities to create awareness with regard to rights and responsibilities of both the consumers and service providers where there is a gap thereby improving consumer welfare and improving service quality.
The FTC is conducting a survey to obtain information that will allow them to understand the level of knowledge of general public in relation to construction.
This survey targeting individuals aged 18 and above who have built or is considering to build started on July 25 and is expected to end today (29 July).
FTC principal analyst Natalie Edmond said this survey is part of a bigger project that following the survey an analysis will be done and then different types of media will be targeted to be able to address the matter.
She said from the results of the survey a targeted programme will be undertaken to address the pertinent matters at hand.
“The first thing is knowing how much the public knows about the construction industry in terms of the analysis from the data, then we will target a very well structured education or awareness programme looking especially the weakness the public has; what it is they don’t know and how much don’t they know,” she said.
Another part of the project is to meet other departments, authorities or organisations such as Natcof, Planning Authority, Seychelles Bureau of Statistics (SBS) and Seychelles Licensing Authority (SLA).
“We will address the causes of the failure in the industry together with other players and stakeholders concerned to see how we can come up with a comprehensive way of looking at the different measures that we can take in terms of the construction industry so that things are running smoothly and monitored,” she said.
Ms Edmond said different individual and professional traders will also be consulted such as contractors, electrician and plumbers to educate them so that they know what it is that clients are expecting from them.
“They need to know how to deliver to the expectation of the consumers and to the expectations of the national standards that exist within the country,” she said.
Instead of getting people coming to complain at the commission, she said consumers can be empowered to know what they should do for example a consumer should know that a contractor should have a commencement notice before building a house as the plan could expire if the building is not done.
FTC wants to go even further by making an opinion paper or even policy wise that can tackle those issue, as they want to find solutions that are long term to make sure that this situation is not recurrent.
She said for the first three days over 300 surveys were submitted and those who have not had a chance to give their input are being urged to do so online on the FTC website and facebook page as well as Natcof’s website and facebook page.

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