Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, quite a number of points have been raised, especially by the Member for Punggol as Chairman of the GPC on Housing. But may I first take up the points raised by the Member for Geylang Serai. The main point he made was with regard to the problem of older clerks-of-work and how we can structure the courses to help these people to become qualified clerks-of-work. In my previous statement to the House, I said that one of the reasons why we are not implementing this part of the requirement immediately is to give time to the existing clerks-of-work who do not have paper qualifications to attend CIDB courses and make themselves qualified. Courses have already started. And within the three years that we have in mind, we should be able to train all those who are now in the industry. For those who are older, I am not sure whether we can structure special courses but I want to assure the Member and the House that everything would be done to help all those who are already in the industry to qualify. But obviously we need to set certain minimum requirements and just because a person is in the industry or already has been working as a clerk-of-work but cannot satisfy the minimum, requirement does not mean that he must be given some sort of qualification to continue his work. If we want the clerks-of-work to do their job properly, they must satisfy a certain minimum requirement. I will ask the CIDB to look into this question of the older workers and see how they can be helped. Regarding the Register of Contractors, this question was in fact considered by the Building Committee and they came to the conclusion that under present circumstances perhaps it is not practical to have a special register for the private sector. Of course, there is nothing to prevent any developer in the private sector to use contractors who are now in the register for public works, for Government works. These contractors are classified according to various types of works and also the size of contracts. Anybody in the private sector is free to select from these contractors. But I must emphasize that the fact that the contractor is in the register does not mean that all the other steps necessary to ensure good work, steps such as having professional resident engineers or clerks-of-work are not necessary. We need all the other steps to ensure that contractors deliver what they are supposed to deliver. Regarding construction workers, yes, the CIDB is very conscious and, in fact, it is one of the main functions of the CIDB to try and improve or increase the pool of skilled construction workers in Singapore. The CIDB will continue to pay attention to this aspect. I now come to the many questions raised by the Chairman of the GPC, the Member for Punggol. First of all, he asked about the criteria for accredited engineers. For a checker or an accredited engineer, the person must be, first of all, a registered professional engineer in the civil or structural engineering discipline. He or she must have a minimum of 10 years' working experience in the design and construction of buildings and structures after qualifying as a professional engineer in Singapore. Lastly, the person must have a sound knowledge of design and behaviour of structures, good construction practices, properties of building materials and all the relevant codes of practices. We have already asked for those who satisfy these criteria to apply to be registered. Registration has closed and a selection panel made up of senior practising engineers from both the public and private sectors has been formed to evaluate the applications. The panel is now scrutinizing the applications and we will have the list of checkers or accredited checkers ready by the time this law comes into operation. The second point raised was the question of site supervision. The Member made the point that sometimes work goes round the clock and how can we expect supervision to also be done round the clock. It is already common practice, especially in the case of large projects, to have full-time resident engineers and clerks-of-works. There are many site supervisors who have years of working experience although they have no paper qualifications and, as I mentioned just now, action is being taken by the CIDB to train and qualify these people. In most building construction work, working beyond normal working hours or even round the clock is required from time to time, especially when they are pouring concrete. You cannot stop pouring of concrete, especially when they are doing special types of structures. For example, when Raffles City was constructed and concrete was poured for the basement, it was done round the clock for, I think, 48 or 72 hours. When this happens, of course, site supervisors will either have to work overtime or arrangements will have to be made for them to secure additional site supervisors or to roster those who are already on the job to ensure that as long as work is going on somebody is there to supervise. I think there is no question of exempting supervision during certain times of work. If the work is essential and it has got to be carried out round the clock, there must also be supervision round the clock. So far this has never given rise to problems. I must emphasize that though this is a requirement now under the Bill before the House, it is in fact already being practised by the more responsible developers and the larger contractors. They do have full time site supervisors either as engineers, technicians or clerks-of-works. The third point raised was whether the Building Authority has adequate qualified and reliable manpower to carry out spot checks on construction sites. Action has already been taken to recruit additional staff by the Building Authority and we expect sufficient numbers to be recruited by the time this law is brought into operation. Of course, there will have to be some re-deployment. Some of the older and more experienced engineers and other technicians from the present PWD will have to be given this job and some of the new recruits can do the present PWD jobs. Anyway, we are taking action to recruit additional staff and we are confident that we will be able to get enough to do the necessary. The next point raised was whether all these new controls that we are putting in place will result in delays. With the additional qualified people who are being recruited, we are confident that there should be no delay. The intention is that these new requirements should not cause a delay in the processing of plans by the Government. The other point raised by the Member for Punggol was the increased cost as a result of employment of accredited checkers. I mentioned in my statement sometime ago that it is estimated that the cost of total construction will increase by 0.11% and I think the Member made the point that developers may try to pass on this increased cost to the buyers and that perhaps this is unfair. Sir, first of all, I think this increased cost must be incurred if we want better and safer buildings. As to whether this should be paid by the buyer or the developer, I think that depends on the market. It is just like using any new material, any better material. If it is a sellers' market, of course, the seller will pass on to the buyer. If there are a lot of sellers and the buyers are in a good position, then of course the seller will have to take a lower profit and absorb the cost. So it is not possible to say in advance who is going to bear the cost. It all depends on market conditions. But I think the point to note is that the buyer will get a better and a safer building. The other point raised by the Member was the question of how the Building Authority is going to carry out inspection of buildings, maintenance and checking of buildings. As he said, this is a monumental task, the stock of buildings is very large and it is not intended that the Building Authority himself will carry out these inspections. It is the owners who will be required to appoint their own professional engineers to carry out these checks. A programme will, of course, have to be drawn up to deal with the entire building stock and priority will be given to public buildings. But most of the work will, in fact, be done by professionals in the private sector. They will have to be engaged by the owners to do this job. The Member asked whether any other buildings, apart from Cheng Hong Mansion, have been declared as unsafe. As far as I remember, there is only one other building that has, in fact, been declared as unsafe officially and legally by the Building Authority, and that is, the Singapore Swimming Club car park. Of course, Members are aware that Hwa Chong Junior College has been vacated but that was not declared by the Building Authority as unsafe. The action was taken by the Minister for Education based upon reports made by professional engineers. A number of other buildings have been identified as buildings that have defects which require attention. I think there are about eight buildings. Some of them have been featured in the newspapers from time to time, buildings like Hilltop apartments. These are not unsafe in the sense that they have to be vacated by the residents. There are some defects which have to be attended to and repairs are being done. The Member asked what recourse people have if defects appear after some time. I am afraid, as the Member has pointed out, this is outside the ambit of the Building Authority. But what we are trying to do with the new provisions in the Act is to ensure that buildings are built properly. I think we should pay attention to trying to tackle the problem at the time of construction, and not put into place all kinds of legislation which would deal with the situation after a building has been fully constructed. The objective of this Bill is to ensure that buildings are properly designed, designs checked, construction properly supervised, and then after that properly maintained. No building can just be so good that it does not require maintenance. Buildings require to be maintained. If all these things are done as required under the Act, that building should then be safe. But this Bill that is before the House does not address the problem of what happens if the building after five or 10 years is found to have a defect. That is a separate problem and I think it has to be tackled quite separately. As I have pointed out and as the Member has also drawn attention to my point, Government buildings are exempted from the provisions of the Act because the Government has very strong internal procedures which go even beyond what is provided for in this Bill. Every structural design done by a Government engineer is checked by another Government engineer who is more experienced than the designer. The checking engineer is usually of a higher grade and is quite competent to carry out such a structural checking. This is already standard procedure. Then all Government building projects are supervised by Government resident engineers with the assistance of supervisors, clerks-of-works and so on. I think anybody who has anything to do with any contractors in Singapore would know that Government buildings and Government works are very, very closely supervised to ensure that work is done according to design. Thirdly, Government buildings are subject to regular maintenance checks in order to ensure that it is structurally sound. So there is already in place and has been in place for some time all the necessary procedures to ensure a proper design in construction and maintenance. That is why we do not have Government buildings covered by the Bill before the House. The Member referred to the change of name from "Certificate of Fitness" to "Certificate of Statutory Completion". The actual certificate or what work has to go into before the certificate is issued is the same. The reason why we changed the name is that the present term COF or Certificate of Fitness gives an impression to the people that somehow Government certifies that the building is sound, of good quality finish, and then when people go there and see the tiles are not what they expected or the floors slope the wrong way or doors do not close, they say, "How did the chap get the certificate of fitness?" What the certificate of fitness means is that the building has been completed according to the designs that were submitted to the building authority. Of course, the design submitted to the Building Authority has been subject to checks in so far as the architectural side is concerned in the past. But now, under the Bill, the structural aspect will be checked. If the building is built according to these designs, then a certificate of statutory completion will be given. But it is not a certificate to state that it is built according to what the buyer expected the building to be or of the finish they expected the building to be. The renaming of the certificate itself would not give any more confidence. We have just taken the opportunity of this Bill being presented to the House to change the name. It is the new measures introduced in the Bill that will ensure that steps are taken to protect the buyers' interest. The Member asked about the liability of the Building Authority and whether because the Building Authority certifies that the building is fit for occupation, the Building Authority should be liable if defects are found later. The Building Authority's role is to enforce a system of control on building operations in the interests of public safety. It does so through the provisions of the Bill before the House. But the responsibility of seeing that building operations are carried out in accordance with approved plans and approved specifications lies with the qualified person, ie, the architect or the engineer. That is why we have the whole system of registering engineers and architects and only people who qualify and meet certain criteria are registered. This has to do with some of the basic professions in a society and it is they who must take the responsibility and they will continue to be responsible even after the building is completed. As long as they practise, they are responsible. So defects cannot be the responsibility of the Building Authority. The Building Authority is a regulatory authority. It tries to ensure that the design is done properly and construction is supervised and buildings are maintained. But at the end of the day it must be the responsibility of the professional engineer or architect to ensure that these things are done properly. In fact, the Commission of Inquiry into the collapse of Hotel New World recognized that this must be so and the provision that we have in the Bill, ie, to protect the Building Authority against liability, is also found in other similar legislation in other countries. It is a fairly standard provision in legislation of this kind. The Member asked about the long-term responsibility. What happens if defects begin to surface 5-10 years after the building is completed? I said this before, and I will repeat this, that it is the industry that must self-regulate and set high standards to follow. Of course, as I said just now, the professionals have a moral obligation as well as a professional obligation to ensure that they carry out their functions properly. This applies to architects and engineers. In some countries, the problem of long-term defects has been dealt with either by building insurance scheme or some developers accreditation scheme or common defects fund and so on. These are some of the options that I think we can consider in Singapore. I understand that the Real Estate Developers Association has been looking into these options and I do not know whether they will adopt any of these options. But I would like to emphasize this. We must not swing from one extreme to another. Let us not swing to the extreme that we put all sorts of requirements and schemes into place which may, in fact, greatly increase cost. For example, in France, they do have a building insurance scheme but that does affect building cost quite substantially. I think if we can concentrate on controlling the quality of buildings at the design and construction stage, we would have gone a long way to ensure that buildings are sound structurally for a long, long time. This is what the new Bill will do, ie, design checked, constructed and maintained to safe standards. As to how poor workmanship is covered by the Bill, the Member said that there is a gap in the Bill. It is true. We are concerned not with the aesthetics. But we are concerned with the structural soundness of the building under the Act. Poor workmanship can be quite a subjective and contentious issue. What appears to be poor workmanship to some people may be acceptable to others. And what appears to be acceptable at one time may not be acceptable at another time. Many people in Singapore were quite prepared to accept buildings of poor workmanship, poor tiling, poor finishes, when there was a boom because people thought they could buy and sell the flat or the house within a few months and they thought they were getting a building or a house or a flat at a good price so they did not bother about poor workmanship. Once, of course, the real estate market collapsed, then people became very conscious about workmanship. It is very difficult to legislate good workmanship. It is something that buyers must demand and be intelligent and discerning consumers when they buy homes. They must check the credentials and integrity of those involved in the property development. Many people buy properties on the basis of brochures without bothering to find out who the developer is or whether he has a track record. That is all right, as I said, when there is a real estate boom. People are quite confident that what they buy today will be worth much more in future. But I think people are beginning to realize that they should not just jump blindly and commit themselves into buying properties from people who do not have a good track record. That is all I can commend to buyers that they must exercise discretion and they must do a proper assessment before they commit themselves to buying any property. The Member for Bo Wen asked what are the likely problems in the implementation of this Bill. The main thing is to get the staff in place and we have already taken action on that. One of the primary considerations in the drafting of this Bill was to make sure that we only have things that we can in fact do. We can set very high standards and all kinds of requirements can be put into the Bill which cannot be done. So we tried to make it as practical as possible. But in spite of our effort we still want to allow contractors and professionals and others to have a say so that we will ultimately have an Act that is one that can be easily implemented and will not increase the cost to the industry and to buyers too much. When will the Building Authority start work or when will this Act be ready for implementation? I think it should be at the latest by the middle of the year if we can finish our Select Committee and put the Bill through the Third Reading. But I am quite confident that by the time this Bill is ready for assent by the President we will be ready to implement the provisions of the Bill. The Member referred to clause 35 - recovery of expenses. Will the professional services of the Building Authority be charged? I cannot tell him offhand. I would say that, as a general principle, if Government incurs cost which would not otherwise be incurred even though it comes out of its own resources, then it should be charged. It will be charged. That is the general principle. The Member for Tanah Merah asked about a particular condominium where the certificate of fitness is being held back. There is no way that the Building Authority can force a developer to say, "Do this now." What the Building Authority can do is to say, if you want a certificate of fitness, you have to do it." If he does not do what is necessary, he will not get a certificate of fitness. In some cases, the problem arises because we give what is, in fact, a TOL, Temporary Occupation Licence. That creates some problems because people move in and then the COF is not issued. I will certainly ask the Building Authority to be more careful about issuing these temporary licences because where a developer does not have a good record, I would personally say we should not allow him to do anything that will enable people to move in and complicate the issue. That will be the general approach. For this particular condominium that the Member mentioned, I will have to look into the details of the case.